Prowl
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: After an attack by a Future Predator, Connor hasn't been acting quite the same. Something is happening to him, and the entire team is worried. Only the mysterious Hunters know the truth, and it might be enough to divide the team permanently.
1. Blood Will Out

**A/N: this is semi-based off Sar-kaz-m's _Saving Stephen_ series, in which Stephen survives the events of S2E7 and Becker and Sarah have both joined up with the ARC team. Other than that, this is all mine. Well, the plot is. The actual show…that definitely isn't mine, though one can dream. I thought this up awhile ago, but I wanted to finish my Fractured fic first (let's hear it for alliteration!). Anyways, I saw the fan art online, and the muse attacked me. Enjoy.**

* * *

Connor Temple was going to die. He knew it for a fact. He was bleeding at a most alarming rate, the thick red liquid seeping through his clothes and onto the grassy ground beneath him; in the moonlight, his blood looked black instead of red, almost as if he was bleeding tar or ink. It was a disconcerting, disorienting sight. He dragged in another ragged breath, hearing it gurgle horribly in his lungs. The wind howled through the trees, bitterly cold even though it wasn't quite winter yet, his breath steaming in the air in front of him. Trembling, numb fingers hesitantly reached up to his side, probing past his ripped layers of clothing to the wound underneath; a low, rasping moan of pain was drawn from his throat as he touched the bleeding gouge in his side.

_That is…a bit not good,_ he thought, mind numbed by shock and pain. He knew he ought to call out to the others, but what good would that do? They'd left him. He'd been forgotten. Again. The Future Predator that'd attacked him and turned him into ceviche had fled when it heard the sounds of the team. Cutter had led the team – Abby and Stephen, along with new additions Captain Action Man Becker and Dr. Sarah Page – after the raptors, ones that had escaped the anomaly. And none of them had noticed Connor wasn't with them. He was used to it, on some level, being the one person that everyone overlooked, that everybody forgot about, but it was another thing entirely to be left behind with a raptor and a Future Predator on the loose. Well, they didn't know about the Predator, but they _did_ know about the raptors, and weren't those dangerous enough?

His breath came in low rasping gasps, a wet gurgling noise in his throat like someone forcing air through a clogged pipe. He was starting to believe that he'd punctured a lung from the way his breathing felt wet in his throat, and every exhale sent thick, tacky blood gurgling up his windpipe into his mouth. _Wonder what'll kill me first…drowning in my own blood, the shock, or the blood loss,_ he thought vacantly, no longer alarmed by the prospect that he was dying. His mind had sunk too far down into the haze of shock to be afraid. He coughed hard, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his cheek; his own blood felt hot on his skin, like someone had dribbled hot tea down his face.

Connor looked up at the dark sky. The stars were starting to get blurry, a hazy darkness forming around the edges of his vision, and the moon seemed brighter than before, pulsing with a silver light that overtook everything else he saw. He felt peculiarly tired now, like he'd gone too long without sleep. He didn't feel quite as cold now, and his lashes were heavy. The ground wasn't that uncomfortable, either…. He yawned widely. His head fell back on the leafy ground, lashes falling closed. The last thought that passed through his mind before darkness overcame him was, _I wonder if they'll find my body or if the Predator will come back and eat me. Either way…_

* * *

Jenny paced back and forth along the damp, leafy ground, rubbing her hands together for warmth as she watched the anomaly. The team had gone through over an hour ago, and she was still waiting for them to come back. There was a CO2 gun of tranquiliser darts in her hand, and the longer time went on, the more nervous she found herself getting.

"Oi, something's coming through!" said one of the soldiers, and she turned to face the anomaly again. Anomalies looked like broken glass. It was as if a crystal ball had exploded in midair, glass fragments exploding outwards, frozen in time, suspended and shimmering with a soft white-gold light. Right now, it was pulsing and warping, a sign that something was making its way through the temporal gateway.

The first to step through was Cutter; she let out a low sigh of relief, seeing him coming back whole and unhurt. It was rather common for him to return with scrapes or cuts of some sort, or bites and scratches from a creature. So whenever he came back without fresh blood on his clothes, it was cause for relief. "Are the raptors back where they belong?" she asked, stepping towards him. Three raptors this time, though not as big as the ones from the shopping centre the year before. These were smaller, though no less vicious, dromaeosaurs and not the enormous utahraptors from the mall.

"Yeah. All sorted," he replied, stepping past her to put the tranquiliser guns back into the cases in the back of the Hilux.

Jenny smiled and glanced over her shoulder as the rest of the team came through the anomaly, looking no worse for wear: Abby, Stephen, the newest additions Sarah and Becker… A small frown pulled at her lips. "Where's Connor?" she asked.

Cutter glanced up. "Eh?"

A sinking feeling was starting to form in the pit of her stomach. "Connor. Connor Temple, your student. Where. Is. He?" she asked again, separating each word into its own sentence. The sinking feeling only grew worse at the expression of dismay on his face; his mouth opened, made no noise, and closed again. She turned to look at the rest of the team; they were exchanging glances as well, faces turning guilty. "Oh, no. No, no, no…. Nick Cutter, do not, _do not_ tell me that you left him behind," she demanded; he didn't say anything, averting his gaze in a gesture that to her spoke of nothing but shame. "Oh, my God." Whirling around, she snatched up her tranquiliser rifle. "Let's go."

As they made their way back towards the anomaly, she glanced over at Cutter. "I can't believe you, Nick. He's part of the team, too," she said coldly.

"I didn't notice he was gone," he replied, a defencive note coming to his voice.

"You're their leader, Nick. It's kind of your job to notice," Jenny replied, turning to stride forward through the anomaly. It was the middle of the night on the other side of the anomaly, and so damned cold that the sharp slap of frigid air made her gasp. She reached up and clicked on the torch attached to her rifle. "Where'd you last see him?" she asked, glancing over at Cutter; he opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking, and that was all the answer she needed. "Christ, Nick," she muttered, then glanced over her shoulder at the others. "Where'd you last see him?" she repeated, but nobody else answered her.

Jenny felt a knot form in her chest, and she had to grit her teeth hard. "Fine, then. Spread out, retrace your steps. Find him," she hissed under her breath, glaring at the professor. She had been on the team for a long while now, and Cutter had always taken care of his team, had pushed the limits to keep those on his team safe, had protected them, which is why it disappointed her so much, leaving Connor behind without even blinking twice at his disappearance, never even noticing that he was gone.

Holding the rifle tightly, she made her way through the waist-high ferns that sprouted between the tall trees. "Connor? Connor, where are you?" she called out softly, keeping her ears strained for any sound. "Connor?"

There was a low, soft noise from the ground, and she lifted her rifle defencively. But then she heard it again, a low, gurgling sigh, and it didn't sound like an animal. Stepping closer to the noise, she carefully pushed past the undergrowth into a small clearing, shining the torch in front of her. What she saw made her blood go cold. "Oh, God, _Connor,"_ she gasped.

The young man was lying on his back on the leafy ground; the side of his clothes were in shreds down the left side, glistening wetly with blood. The ground beneath him was wet as well. Connor had always been pale, having that fair complexion of one who avoided the sun, but now he was chalky pale, white as bleached bone, as if all the blood had been leached out of him. His hair appeared all the darker for it, a black halo around his pale face. Blood was dribbling from the corner of his mouth down his cheek; in the monochrome of moonlight, the blood looked like black ink. Only when the light of the torch fell on him did it turn crimson. As she hastened forward, kneeling down beside him, her shaking hand went out to touch his neck. His skin was cold, but she could still feel a pulse, thin and thready, beneath the skin. "Nick! Stephen!" she shouted.

She heard the sound of running footsteps crashing through the undergrowth, and then the others were there, the sharp glare of their torch lights cutting through the darkness. Abby let out a soft half-wail as she saw the young man on the ground, falling to her knees beside him. Sarah's face went ashen, and even Becker of the steel nerves looked a little ill. "Oh, God," Cutter rasped out weakly, then seemed to snap out of his brief horror. Stepping around Abby, he leant down and slid both arms beneath Connor, lifting the thin form into his arms; the boy didn't seem to weigh anything at all, as if he was full of air and feathers instead of flesh and blood. If moving hurt him at all, Connor didn't show it. His head lolled back bonelessly on his neck, exposing the white skin of his throat; Cutter had never seen anybody so pale. Anybody _alive,_ anyways.

"He isn't bleeding," Sarah said in a stunned voice as they made their way back towards the anomaly.

"He hasn't anything left to bleed," Stephen growled back.

* * *

Crouched in the tree limbs, watching the scene below them unfold silently, black-clad hunters observed everything and missed nothing; keen eyes watched the team hasten back through the anomaly with Connor. Once they had gone and the night fell silent once again, they dropped from the trees to the floor of the Cretaceous forest. A fall like that would've broken a human's legs in several places, but they merely bent their knees to absorb the impact and stood up straight.

Stepping forward until they just stood at the edges of the anomaly's flickering, prismatic light, they stared at the temporal gateway. All of them were sheathed in sleek jumpsuits, and though the fabric appeared black, it was only because those wearing them had adjusted the settings as such. The colour changed as they so wished it to, blending into their surroundings. In the midst of a forest in the dead of night, black was best if they wanted to stay hidden from view. Dark hoods and scarves hid most of their faces as well as protected them from exposure to the elements. Even though it was impossible to tell looking at them, each had at least a dozen weapons hidden on their person, artfully disguised in the folds of their clothes.

"Well...this could be quite problematic," murmured one in a soft female voice, reaching up with a slim hand to push the hood back and draw the scarf down as well. Beneath it was a startlingly young face with delicate features and a wealth of curly, honey-brown hair.

"Just a wee bit," agreed another as he absently ran his fingers across the knife tucked into a leather sheath strapped to his thigh, tracing the familiar texture of the bone-carved hilt. He was watching the anomaly as well, the fractured light playing curiously off his eyes, which were the most distinctive thing about his face. They were the clearest shade of blue, almost crystalline, as if his mother had fooled about with a cat to get him; humans simply didn't have eyes like that.

Another voice spoke up, low and harsh. "We have to go after them. The Predator was infected." This came from the most volatile of the hunters' number, and he practically hummed with tension, the way a string drawn taut would vibrate after being plucked. "We'll find the young one and kill him. Quick and quiet; they'll think it was the injuries. They wouldn't miss him either, or they wouldn't have left him in the first place."

"Quiet," hissed the other man, fingers tightening on the hilt of his knife for a second before loosening once more. "He might not have to die. He's young but he's strong, maybe enough to survive the infection. We'll follow them, but _nobody_ – " He shot a purposeful glance towards his companion, who only skulked and glowered. " – will touch him unless I give the order. He might be of use to us just yet."

"What did they call him?" asked the young woman that'd first spoken.

"Connor. His name is Connor," he answered without taking his gaze from the anomaly. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something about the young man spoke of a strength that went beyond merely physical. He had the feeling that this _Connor_ would be quite useful.

If he survived.


	2. Infiltration

_The body lying on the table is quite dead. Or at least, he is less than a hair's breadth away from it. A white sheet is drawn over his body, covers him from the waist down, and his clothes are gone, so his skin is bare. Long, deep wounds, two parallel gashes, rip their way down his left side, from the tender area beneath his arm all the way down to his hip, curving slightly across his ribs. Cause of death, is it shock or exsanguination? Could be either._

_Above the table, invisible to everyone but those who knew of it already, is the lingering presence of the one that'd existed in the body. He doesn't understand. Why is he here? He can't leave yet. There are still people that need him. Do they need him, though? It is their fault he's like this at all. Why should he even bother going back? Why stay? As these fractured thoughts dart across his mind, two figures sweep into the room. The doctors in white move past them as if they do not exist, because in their eyes, they don't. They are nonentities, beyond the grasp of the physical. One is cloaked in darkness, a moving shadow with no features that can be seen, just a living darkness where no illumination can penetrate. The other is carved of light, like sunshine and moonglow and every light that's ever existed mingled up into one, another sun. They balance each other out, so it is not entirely dark nor entirely light. He wonders what they are doing there._

_The two come to stand above the body on the table, one on either side of the table. As one, they reach out and touch the cool, still form. Above the table, he feels something abruptly _yank_ and then he is back inside his body, settling back into his form as if he'd never left it at all. It feels odd, to be physical again after being ethereal. For a moment, there is no pain, a bare heartbeat in which there is nothing, and then_ –

_Fire! Oh, God, he is on fire! He was burning! His back arches off the table from head to heel, even though his body does not move, still dead to the world, but how can they not see the pain he is in? His body remains silent, unresponsive, but inside, howls of pain escape his throat, screaming and screaming and screaming until his throat begins to bleed and fills his mouth with the thick, coppery taste. White-hot agony spirals through his veins, licking along his muscles and bones, searing through every inch of his body. The pain is indescribable. Surely he'll die soon, for it doesn't seem that anything is capable of surviving pain like this. He knows that his body will soon burn up into nothingness, leaving behind only a wisp of smoke and charred bone. He can no longer think for the pain, barely able to gasp in a breath even though his lungs seared anew with the intake of fresh oxygen. _

_Even though his body's eyes are closed, he can still see the two beings looming above him. The darkness and the light. The dark figure cuts into his flesh as the light does as well, each taking a little bit of him for themselves. Like children doling out sweets. _

_One piece for you, one piece for me. One for you, one for me..._

* * *

Nick Cutter sat in one of the God-awful uncomfortable chairs offered by the hospital, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped under his chin as he stared blankly ahead at the wall. He was reliving the events of the night on a loop inside his head – the terrible, heavy smell of fresh blood, the look of accusation in Jenny's eyes, the awful paleness and stillness of his student on the forest floor, the coldness of his skin...

"Nick?" said a soft voice, snapping him out of his morbid reminiscing. Stephen stood over him, looking down at him with obvious concern in his dark blue eyes; after a second's hesitation, he sat down in the empty chair beside Cutter. "I just talked to the doctor. Connor's stable. Still in surgery, but he ought to pull through just fine," he murmured at last. Neither one of them seemed able to raise their voices above a quiet mumble.

Cutter only nodded mutely. Guilt and shame formed a burning knot in his chest, just below his sternum, and it lingered there, roiling and searing, never dying out. It was his fault. Connor never should've been left alone in that forest. He should've been paying attention, should've noticed that the young man wasn't with them when they went back through the anomaly. Jenny was right – it was his job to notice, and he'd failed. And Connor had almost paid the price for that. Eyes closing, he shoved both hands back through his hair, head bowed. _I'm sorry, Connor. I'm so sorry,_ he thought to himself, and he only prayed that the affable young student would wake up soon so he could apologise in person, and hoped that the boy would forgive him.

Stephen recognised the signs of guilt in the man, the almost-tangible weight that pressed down on Cutter's shoulders. He felt quite the same. Connor had been on the team as long as he had, yet they'd all failed to notice he'd disappeared from amidst their numbers. If Abby or Cutter or Stephen himself had disappeared like that, everyone would've been out looking for them. Yet Connor had been able to disappear so long that he'd nearly bled out in the middle of a Cretaceous forest. The only reason he hadn't bled to death was because it was so cold; hypothermia caused his heartbeat to slow down and slowed his blood flow. Subtly, without being overtly obvious, he leant to the side just enough that his shoulder brushed Cutter's in silent comfort, just enough to feel the man quivering slightly.

"Cutter." Both men looked up to see Jenny standing there. The usual warmth her eyes held when she looked at the professor – a sure sign she thought of him as more than just a friend and coworker – had been replaced by the professional coolness that'd been present when they first met, a cold mask between her and them. "Connor's out of surgery. He's in recovery now, but it's still touch-and-go from here. He can't have any visitors yet," she said; her gaze flicked down to Cutter. "You might want to change your shirt, too," she added on coldly, then turned on heel and walked away.

Cutter looked down and felt his stomach churn. He hadn't even noticed it before, but there was a splash of blood, now mostly dried, down the front of his shirt from where he'd carried Connor. A dark, macabre reminder that his student had nearly died. _Because of me._ Bile rose up in his throat, and he closed his eyes tightly, swallowing hard.

Stephen wanted to shake the woman for only making it worse, but at the same time, he wanted to curl up under a rock to get away from the guilt. It was just as much his fault as anyone's, and it burned something fierce in his chest. He had a feeling that Jenny wasn't going to be forgiving any of them any time soon, especially not Cutter. In his head, he vowed to stop seeing Connor as a kid, even thinking about him. _Please be alright, Connor. We can't do this without you,_ he thought.

* * *

The Hunters infiltrated the hospital with ease. All they had to do was tell Langley that there was a possible new member, an infection, and everything they needed for an extended stay in this time period arrived within the day. They still had work to do, though, so only one of them kept watch at a time, posing as a nurse or an orderly – doctors were too obvious and easily noticed. Nurses and orderlies were the faceless ones, moving in and out through the hospital without notice. And now it was her turn. She was dressed as a nurse, wearing soft grey scrubs and white sneakers, riotously curly dark hair held back with a headband. She kept her gaze away from any other nurses, avoiding suspicion, keeping herself out of the line of question. It wasn't difficult, almost second nature for her. The entire training of Hunters was to move behind the scenes, move swiftly and silently, able to appear and disappear like a sensation of déjà vu, no more.

She made her way through the labyrinthine passages of the hospital to the ICU where their young charge was being kept. He was still deep under the anaesthetics, asleep in his bed. He was still ghostly pale, like a wraith sent to haunt the world of the living, with only the faintest blush of colour in his cheeks. His black hair was a splash of darkness against the white pillowcase, a midnight halo around his pale face. His lashes, long and thick, made perfect crescents against his pale skin, face relaxed, unfeeling pain. She drifted down to the end of the bed and picked up his charts. She had first shift, so it was her job to learn more about this young man.

_Temple, Connor Andrew. Age: 24. Presented with massive blood loss, deep lacerations, and mild hypothermia..._ She raked her eyes down the rest of the charts, taking in the information, filing it away. The words 'unusual x-ray results' caught her eye, and she made a mental note to look into that later. There were a few gaps in the chart, though only to her eye, as medicine in her time was far more advanced, and she filled them in herself. Setting down the charts, she sidled around to stand beside him, casting a sharp Hunter's eye across him. Simply looking at him, he didn't appear to be much, but all Hunters learnt long ago never to judge simply on appearances alone. The fact that most people did indeed – what was the saying? – judge a book by its cover often gave them the upper hand. She knew that merely looking at her, she wasn't much, either. Beautiful by some standards, she supposed, but no-one would look at her and think she was anything more than a soft human woman. They certainly wouldn't think that she was a highly-trained assassin and, in fact, an entirely separate species more evolved than human beings. This young man could be quite the same: an anomaly, with more to him than the surface would suggest.

It was impossible to tell whether or not the infection had taken hold in him yet, and if it did, there was still a good chance it would kill him. They would need to stay for awhile to find out if this boy would be part of their number, and even so, they still had to be sure he could handle it. More than one had survived the infection only to be driven mad by their new existence, and the Hunters had acted as executioners for the poor souls. And if he was not driven mad, other factors still had a play in his overall survival. Not everyone could be a Hunter. Not everyone could have that power and go uncorrupted by it, could exercise the control needed.

Studying him closely, she wondered which strain he was infected with, if at all, and which he would turn out to be. Right now their numbers were almost even: two Elysian, three Charbydion. The Future Predator that'd attacked him had borne both strains, which accounted for its state of madness when they discovered it, why it had only attacked the boy without killing him. The colliding strains had been tearing the creature apart inside. Another thing stacking the odds against young Temple, Connor Andrew. If both strains were transferred, then there was a good chance they'd tear him apart too. Of course, it could be that he was only infected with one.

_If he survives, I hope he comes out Elysian. He looks suited for it,_ she thought idly to herself as she left the room.

* * *

A light touch on Cutter's shoulder nearly startled him right out of his skin, and he half-fell out of his chair. As he sat up, he realised that he must've dozed off sitting here for so long. Looking up, he saw Jenny standing above him. The knot of guilt in his chest – it hadn't dissipated any – burned a little hotter when he saw the cold curtain that'd fallen across her eyes, that cool mask of professionalism that'd been between them for so long after they first met and he called her Claudia Brown. Only in the past few months had that mask slipped away, revealing the warm, friendly woman that lay beneath, and he thought maybe that meant they could be more than just friends. But now that coolness was back, and he _knew_ that she blamed him for this. Hell, he blamed himself. "What is it?" he asked, his voice sounding as if he'd gargled with sand and rusty nails.

She folded both arms over her stomach. "Connor's awake."


	3. Wounded

**A/N: kelleyj, firstly, thank you for reviewing at all. Secondly, to answer your question, the difference between the Elysian and Charbydion hasn't been explained yet, but it will be soon. And only time will tell which one our dear Connor becomes.**

* * *

Connor was awake when they walked into the room, sitting up against the pillows behind him. Cutter's first thought was, _good Lord, is he ever pale._ The young man had always been fair, but now he was downright ghostly. It made his eyes seem entirely black instead of just dark brown, casting bruise-like shadows beneath them. As they came in, he saw something else: there was a darkness in those eyes, something that hadn't been there before.

"Connor, you're alright," Abby gushed happily. "Oh, we were all so worried about you." She came around the side of the bed and reached for his hand, lying on the crisp white bedsheets.

He pulled his hand away from hers, withdrawing it into his lap. Abby frowned, looking at him in confusion. Connor turned his gaze to Cutter, and the professor saw that shadow there again, flickering in the depths of his eyes. He didn't know just what it was exactly, but it didn't seem right. "You…were worried?" the student repeated slowly, the tone of his voice clear that he didn't believe that in the least.

"Of course we were, Conn," she replied. "All of us were."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "If you were so damn worried, then why the fuck did you leave me behind? Answer me that, _Abigail."_

Never, in all the years that they'd known him, had any member of the team ever heard him swear before, or speak to Abby with such a sharp, biting tone. Connor's gaze swept across them all, so hard and cold that it was like another person entirely was looking at them. Cutter didn't fail to notice, though, that Jenny was spared from the ferocious black glare, skimming across her as if she wasn't there.

"I've been on this team as long as any of you have. Hell, if it weren't for me, you wouldn't have ever even found the anomalies at all. I…built the ADD for you lot. I made the handheld detectors. I put together the anomaly locking device. I've done everything I possibly could to make this fucking job easier, and you lot…just…_left me_ out there by myself." A cold, humourless grin pulled at his mouth, the harsh expression having no place on his usually-so-cheerful face, and he shook his head slowly. "Y'know, I said once that I was just tech support, but I guess I'm less than that to you, eh? At least tech support would be _missed._"

"Connor, we didn't—" Abby tried to say.

"Shut up, Maitland," he spat, such an edge to his voice that she physically backed up a step, a hurt look coming to her face. He'd never called her anything but Abby before, and it hurt to hear him call her _Maitland_ like that. "Don't even pretend that I'm your best fucking mate, because we both know that's not true, don't we? I'm just the loser crashing on your couch. And if you think that I'm such a wonderful guy, then maybe when someone asks if I'm your boyfriend, you shouldn't act like someone just suggested you're dating the goddamned artheropleurid."

"Connor, knock it off," Stephen said as Abby backed off, tears forming in her blue eyes.

"Piss off, Hart. You're not any better. At least _she_ never shagged her best friend's wife behind his back," he spat; the tracker blanched and backed off.

"That's enough," Cutter snapped, finding his voice again.

That black gaze whipped around to glare at him, so cold and alien, his eyes flat as obsidian in his pale face. "And _you_ can just sod the hell off, Professor. Maybe if you pulled your head out your fucking arse every now and again you might've realised that your slut of a wife is out of her goddamned mind," he spat back, flinging the words like barbs. "Some leader you are, didn't even notice that I was gone. There were _raptors_ out there, and you just _left._ Yeah, real team leader. Crazy old bastard is what you are. No wonder Helen left you. Probably realised that you're a thick sod with all the personality of a wet fucking mop and figured the gorgonopsid was a better bet than _you_ were. Now, get out."

Cutter swallowed hard, his voice fleeing in the face of this unexpected hostility.

"I said, get out! Out!" Connor shouted. Suddenly, he reached around and grabbed something off the table beside the bed—a glass of water—and threw it with a surprising amount of force. Cutter barely managed to duck out of the way; the glass shattered against the wall, passing a scant centimetre above his head. Water trickled down the wall to the floor, bits of glass flying everywhere. _"Get out!"_ Connor shouted again, reaching for another thing to throw.

Cutter ducked as a paperback book sailed past his ear, ducking out into the hallway. Stephen and Abby were right on his heels, and he didn't miss the tears running down the young woman's face.

* * *

"I got his medical history," said the Huntress as she came into the room, placing a surprisingly hefty folder on the end of his bed. There was something in her eyes that he did not see often and did not like to see at all.

Sitting up, the leader of the Hunters pulled the file towards him, opening it onto his lap. "Temple, Connor Andrew," he read off the top of the charts. "Born October 29th – Hemlock Night – in 1985. He'll be twenty-four this year, then. Good age for infection, then."

"Keep reading," she murmured softly, sinking down to sit on the edge of the bed beside his feet. Her fingers absently played with the slightly frayed hems of his trouser legs.

He did as told, reading further into the files. And the more he read, the more he understood the reason for that look in her eyes. Temple had been x-rayed at the hospital to see if the wound had fractured or cracked any of his ribs or punctured a lung. He held the clear sheet up to the light so he could see the x-ray. His stomach went to knots.

Someone had used this kid for a punching bag. All over his skeleton were dozens of healed fractures and breaks. Every one of his ribs had been broken at some point or another, more than just once. Cracked sternum. Fractured collarbone. Hairline fracture in his radius and ulna. Broken wrists, both of them. Collis fracture in his left arm. Bucket wound in both shoulders. Some had healed wrong, as if they'd never been set properly. The breaks ranged in age from years old to just a few months old. Some of them looked as if they were from when he was a kid.

Lowering the x-ray, he let out a heavy breath. "S'pose I was right. He _is_ strong," he murmured quietly. Someone had beaten the hell out of this young man for years, and yet Temple was still standing. "If he can survive that, he's got a good chance to make it through infection."

The Huntress nodded slowly, dark curls of hair swaying around her face; he always felt the urge to reach out and run his fingers through the ringlets when she did that, but he kept his hands in his lap. "He woke up today. He shouted at the others, the ones that left him behind but not at the one who came back for him. He was unconscious for it, but he still seemed to know she had nothing to do with it. Might already be starting," she said.

"Speculation," the other man corrected sternly, but then he softened his tone, reaching out to place a hand on her arm. "Incubation period is at least two weeks. If he is infected, there won't be any symptoms for another eight days at least."

"Yes, I know," she agreed. "It was only conjecture."

Still trying to soften the effects of his harsh words, he continued, "Perhaps Temple is simply infatuated with her and doesn't wish to hurt her feelings."

The Huntress shook her head again. "No, I saw her colours. She worries for him, but it is not infatuation. It is more…sisterly. The little blond one, Maitland, _she's_ the one infatuated with him, even though she denies it to herself. He is so tangled up at the moment I cannot tell, but I think he cares about her the same way. The Scotsman and the woman, Lewis, they're the ones infatuated with each other. Of course, they're both ignoring it as best they can. She's quite cross with him still, probably because he left Temple behind."

The leader nodded contemplatively. It was quite useful, having Elysian Hunters, because only the Elysian strain had the ability to read into a person's aura, their "colours" as it were. They could tell whether or not someone was trustworthy, if they were liars or schemers, could get the basic feel of their emotions. It was useful when trying to find allies in a tricky situation, or, when on reconnaissance missions like these, understanding the interactions of their targets. It would be good if young Temple came through Elysian, though another Charbydion wouldn't go astray.

"We'll have to keep a close watch on them. If he chooses to separate himself from the others, we need to be there to take him in, monitor him. The Predator carried both strains, and we'll be in quite a spot of trouble if he goes off it," he decided quietly.

_"Everyone_ will be in a spot of trouble if he goes off it," she agreed.

* * *

Jenny waited an hour before she even dared to head anywhere near Connor's hospital room again. She had known him for almost two years, and she'd never seen him so angry, had never heard him swear or insult anyone so harshly. He'd been spitting mad, and he'd even _thrown_ things, something she'd never thought see happen. He'd shouted at everyone…except for _her,_ which was the only reason she even dared to go anywhere near his room.

Ready to duck if needed, she rapped her knuckles against the doorframe, not stepping into his line of fire just yet. "Conn?"

"You can come in, Miss Lewis. The nurses took away anything else I might be able to throw," came the soft reply.

She slid into the room carefully. Connor was slumped back against the pillows stacked up on his bed, eyes half-closed; it was like all the fire that'd been there a short while ago had been drained out of him. He looked just as young and vulnerable as he should. "Hey," he mumbled.

"Hi," she answered softly. As she came closer to the bed, she saw that everything able to be easily thrown had indeed been removed from within arm's reach of the bed. The water and glass had been cleaned up as well. She sat on the edge of his bed, careful not to jostle him at all. "That was…different."

"Miss Lewis, I really don't want to talk about it," he whispered, eyes closing the rest of the way.

"They didn't mean to leave you there," she murmured, pressing ahead very gingerly. Usually she could talk freely with Connor, no matter the subject, like crossing an open field, but now it felt like she was trying to make it across a minefield without knowing where the mines were. "They didn't – "

"That's just it," he cut her off, his voice still deceptively soft and quiet. "They didn't notice. They didn't _care._ They just...left me." A slightly choked tone came to his voice, and she knew that, no matter how angry he might've been, underneath it, he was truly hurt. He saw everyone on the team as his friends, depended on them and trusted them, and they'd let him down in the worst way.

She also noticed that he said _'they'_ and not _'you.'_ A low, soft sigh escaped her lips. "I'm sorry, Connor," she said quietly.

Without opening his eyes, his hand went out to rest over hers, his skin cool. Somehow his hands looked strange without their ubiquitous fingerless gloves. "It was them, Miss Lewis, not you," he answered.

Wrapping her hands around his own, she sat on the edge of his bed in silence, offering what comfort she could.


	4. Love and Hate

It was another week before Connor was well enough to be discharged from the hospital. In that time, none of the team had spoken to him. Not out of their own volition, of course; whenever they tried to visit him, they were met with angry swearing and sometimes thrown items. Not even Abby had gotten through to him. It was going to take a bit more than simply saying sorry to ease away this kind of animosity. _Sorry_ was stepping on someone's foot in a theatre. _Sorry_ was bumping into someone and spilling their drink. _Sorry_ was not leaving a teammate alone in a carnivore-infested forest without even noticing he was gone. Sometimes Connor didn't even know why he was so angry at them. It wasn't like him. But whenever Cutter or Stephen or Abby came to him, trying to apologise, a feeling of outright _fury_ boiled up from somewhere in the depths of his chest, only satisfied with throwing things and cursing a blue streak. A vicious little voice in the back of his head that hadn't been there before whispered that if he simply bowed out, just up and forgave his "friends" like that, then they'd probably never learn their lesson. He was going to make these thick bloody sods realise that he was just as important as any of them and not just creature fodder to be chucked aside. The only one spared from the young man's wrath was Jenny. Though nobody admitted to telling Connor that she'd been the one to realise he was missing at all and subsequently mount a rescue mission to find him, he seemed to simply know it.

Of course, none of them, not even Connor, knew that the unprecedented aggression was one of the earliest symptoms of the infection beginning to work its way into his body.

* * *

Abby was waiting for him outside of the hospital when he left, standing beside the Bug, fingers twisting around the hem of her jacket. She wore a short tartan skirt with black leggings underneath, her black Doc Martens, a graffiti-covered t-shirt with a grey undershirt, jacket tied around her waist. She looked as if she hadn't slept much, dark shadows under her eyes, a weary air about her. As he came towards her, he saw a flicker of slight trepidation in her eyes. She was still afraid of his anger, and for good damned reason. He could still feel that little coal of fury under his breastbone, never quite burning out, always simmering. It'd take a good while before it went away.

He didn't say a word as he got in the car, and the ride back to the flat was frigidly silent. All things aside, Connor _was_ happy to be home. He _hated_ hospital food, and he missed his bed and his comics and his loft. As he walked in the door, Rex fluttered down from the rafters to land on his head, tiny claws pressing into his hair, chirruping excitedly. Sid and Nancy wove in and out through his ankles, huffing and squeaking with delight at the return of their other favourite human. "Yeah, yeah, I'm home. Don't hurt yourselves," he chortled, carefully stepping over the diictodons as he made his way into the kitchen for a proper meal.

Abby followed after him, uncertain and nervous. She wanted to find some way to apologise to him, some way to make up for what she'd done. But how could she? There were no words that could ever fix this. How exactly did one say sorry? _We left you behind in a prehistoric forest full of carnivores, and you almost died because of it. Sorry about that, mate._ Yeah, like that would ever work. He was already mad at her, and she couldn't blame him. How had she not realised just how horribly she'd been to him? But still, she felt like she had to say _something._ "Connor, I – "

He went still at the sound of her voice. "Abby, if you are going to say something trying to apologise for what you did, don't. I don't want to hear it. Just…don't," he said stiffly.

"Please, I-I'm trying to – "

"To what? Make this better? There is nothing that you can say to fix this, alright? This, this isn't something that you can fix with words. So just…stop. Apologising does nothing but get very damn irritating," he answered. Kicking the fridge shut, he picked up the plate he'd stacked full of food. "I'll be in my room. Leave me alone."

He brushed past her, and she heard his footsteps ascend the steps into the loft. Abby put her face in her hands. _Oh, my God, what have I done?_

* * *

Cutter sat at his desk, holding a fossilised hypsilophodon skull in his hands; he used it as a paperweight. God, what a bloody mess he'd made of this. There weren't many situations in which he was at a complete and total loss as to what to do next, but he definitely was now. There wasn't any way to simply apologise in a way that would make up for what'd happened.

He was so absorbed in his own miserable thoughts that he didn't notice Jenny walk into his office until she sat down across from him and spoke quietly, "You look a thousand miles away, Nick. What are you thinking about?"

Glancing up at her, he set the fossilised skull back on the desk. Jenny was the only one that'd been spared from Connor's fury. He supposed he understood why: she was the one to go after him, to even realise he was gone. If it hadn't been for her, they would've left him alone in the Cretaceous and wouldn't have found him until he was already dead. Or might not have found him at all. He let out a heavy sigh. "Connor," he answered at last.

Jenny sat back slightly in her chair, and he saw the shift in her eyes. "Connor," she echoed softly. An entire world of understanding was contained in that one word, that name. "What about him?" she asked, voice decidedly guarded. She hadn't quite gotten around to forgiving Cutter or the others just yet either. Maybe it wasn't fair, but she didn't really care about that.

She was a little surprised, though, to see the Scotsman swallow hard and look towards the floor. When he glanced up at her through his lashes, there was a miserable regret in his pale blue eyes. "He hates me, doesn't he?" Cutter asked in a voice that surprised her both with the softness and pain it contained.

Even if she was pissed at him, it pulled at something in her to see him look so forlorn. Leaning forward in the chair, Jenny reached out and placed one hand over his. "Connor _loves_ you, Nick," she corrected in just as soft a voice, and a flicker of confusion passed through his eyes. "Trust me, it'd be _easier_ if he hated you. Hate is an emotion that can be handled a hell of a lot easier than love can. Especially when it's disappointed love," she explained; he winced slightly at that. But it was the truth. Connor loved the professor like a father, and he loved the team as if they were his family. He loved them still. That was just it. He loved them, and they'd disappointed him in a terrible way. It hurt a lot more than simple anger or hatred could, and it lasted a lot longer than either. Connor was hurt and he was angry, but he didn't hate them. He still loved them; it would just take some time for him to get back to it.

"What do I _do?"_ he asked, sounding more like a lost child than anything. "This isn't something you can just say sorry for, but – "

"Give it time," she replied gently. "You're right. You can't apologise for this with words. Just...give him time. Show him that you really do care, because that's what tears him up so badly. He thinks you don't care. Show him that you do and give him time. He'll come around, Nick." Jenny doubted that he believed her, but she knew it was true. Connor was too good of a person to allow him to hold onto anger like that, not for too long. He would come back to them.

Cutter shook his head slowly, looking up at her through his pale lashes once more. He moved lightly to wrap his hand around hers. "How do you always know how to make things better?" he asked quietly. His thumb lightly stroked the inside of her wrist.

Jenny leant away from him, sliding her hand out of his own. "It's my job," she replied, and she didn't miss the slight flicker of hurt that crossed his face. It would take time for Connor to forgive the team...and it would take time for her to forgive Cutter as well.

* * *

"I still think that we ought to kill him. It's not too late for it," muttered the irritable Hunter under his breath as he reloaded his weapon.

"Shut _up,"_ hissed his brother in a low voice. "The decision's already been made. The kid stays alive until we know if he's infected or not. Enough with this talk about killing him already." He returned his attention to the long, curved knife in his hands, carefully drawing the whetstone along the razor edge, the blade reflecting the kitchen light in slashes of pale silver. "Besides, from what I've seen of him, he's not half-bad. Definitely smart. You should see some of the stuff the kid's put together. It's more advanced than the time. He'd fit right in," the man added after a moment of silence, not addressing any particular person in the kitchen where they were working.

"Another male. How delightful," remarked the curly-haired Huntress dryly, and the younger girl beside her snickered. "Perhaps soon we'll have another Huntress. Or maybe one of you will die from testosterone poisoning and make all of our lives easier."

A snort of laughter escaped the man, even as his brother only gave her a dark scowl in response. "Come off it. You couldn't live without us and you know it," he chortled.

"Oh, I'm sure that I could," she murmured back softly, not missing the cold glare she was getting. The brothers were the only siblings in the entire Adonai Initiative, but the differences between them were vast. Simply looking at them, nobody would believe they were brothers at all. They were so different from each other. The elder of the brothers was tall and broad, with a shock of ginger hair that stood up everywhere. He rarely showed emotion to outsiders – none of them did – but when he smiled at them, it was warm and friendly, and his laugh was infectious, as was his peculiar and sometimes inappropriate sense of humour. He embodied the very name Elysian – light. The younger, however, was Charbydion through and through, different even from the others who shared the same strand. He wasn't as large as his brother and was instead lithe and wiry, reminding her of a weasel or a stoat. His eyes and hair were both dark, nearly black, and his hands were quick to cause pain. She had known him for nearly four years and could never claim to have ever seen him smile, or heard him laugh. He frightened her, in honesty, and she did not scare easily.

"What do you have against this boy anyways?" asked the girl sitting at the Huntress's side. "I think he sounds alright. He _is_ very smart – "

"Not smart enough to get away from a Predator," he snarled back.

"No human can just _get away_ from a Predator, Ethan," his brother scolded. "You know that."

"And he's strong," continued the girl, ignoring the siblings entirely. "There's not many humans that could go through what he did without giving in. Not to mention, did you _see_ all the comic books he had? I could finally talk to someone about Marvel and DC without getting nothing but blank stares in return. And all the things he built, we could – "

"You just want someone to geek out with, don't you?"

The youngest of their number sat back defencively. "Maybe. But he'd still be good for us."

Setting down his gun, the dark-haired brother shrugged. "I still say we ought to kill him."


	5. Infection

_Hungry._

That was the first conscious thought that registered in the feverish, sleep-logged mind of Connor Temple as he sat up in his bed, watery moonlight slanting through the windows of his loft bedroom, making strange shadow-light patterns on his rumpled bed. _Where am I?_ he thought groggily; he felt as if he'd been hit by a lorry doing 120 downhill. His body felt almost waterlogged, his head was throbbing, and his shoulders felt heavy as a lead bar. Reaching up, he swiped his hair off his forehead, letting his fingers linger. His skin felt hot to the touch, dry and feverish. He gripped the edge of the bed and hauled himself upwards into a standing position. _Not a good idea._ The room whirled about sickeningly, and he leaned against the half-wall of the loft, his head nearly scraping the rafter, eyes screwing shut, one arm gripping his lurching stomach. Tripping and staggering, he crossed the loft and made it down the staircase without falling or breaking anything.

_Hungry…._

It was a dark, abiding ache. Physical pain that he could feel radiating outward from his stomach. With a soft groan, he wrapped one arm around his stomach as he made his way across the dim and quiet flat into the kitchen. He could see his warped reflection in the stainless steel surfaces – a tall, gangly boy with nightmare hair and an insane, bleak expression. He yanked open the fridge, blinking in the sudden harsh light and giving a little shiver at the cold air. Vitamin water, Abby's energy drinks, bottled soda. Nope. He yanked open the drawers. Fresh fruit, cut and stored in Tupperware containers, half a grapefruit wrapped in cellophane, a plate of chopped lettuce and greens for Rex's breakfast. White cardboard boxes of leftover Thai. Low-fat yogurt. No good.

_Hunngrrry…._

In the next drawer, he found it – a pound of raw hamburger meat. Connor snatched the package out of the drawer, kicked the fridge shut, and turned back to the counter. He tore off the brown paper wrapping and ripped through the plastic cover. Meat. Hunger gnawed demandingly at his belly; he tore off a chunk of the raw beef with his bare fingers and shoved it into his mouth. The taste exploded on his tongue, and he moaned in pleasure. He swallowed the mouthful and grabbed more of the raw meat, devouring it so voraciously that blood dripped down his chin. He practically swallowed it whole. Just a few more mouthfuls, and then he was licking the remnants of the juices and blood off the package. Tossing it into the wastebin, he turned around and went back into the fridge, found a package of steaks, tore open the wrapping, and ate those too.

* * *

"It's starting," said the leader of the Hunters as he walked back into the house that they had turned into their temporary base of operations.

"How can you tell?" asked the curly-haired Huntress, rising from her chair.

"There aren't many humans that get up in the middle of the night and eat nearly two pounds of raw meat," he answered. That was one of the earliest symptoms of the infection, a hunger for meat that was undercooked, raw, bloody. It was disturbing and a little eerie, but it was an easily recognisable sign. "We'll have to keep a close eye on him. If he's caught both strains, we'll have to get him before he hurts anybody."

"I will come with you," offered the Huntress, rising to her feet. A double-strand infection was extraordinarily dangerous. Even if they were fast and strong, a person caught up in the midst of infection, caught between the warring forces of Elysian and Charbydion, could be just as fast and strong, sometimes even more so.

He gave a sharp nod. "Good, let's go," he said. As they walked out of the house, making their way back towards the flat where Temple lived, he glanced over at her. "Do you think that he will have caught both strains?" he asked softly. "It will not be pretty if he has." And it wouldn't. They had seen a human become infected by both strands before, and it'd been terrible. The human had gone mad, had clawed his own eyes out and had started gnawing on his own arms, ripping his hair out and screaming himself hoarse. He'd hardly been a human at all. It'd been a mercy when they killed the poor creature. It would be a terrible thing if the same thing happened to young Temple, and they would have to give him the mercy of a swift death.

She let out a sigh and shook her head, dark curls bouncing, gleaming softly under the glow of moonlight. "I don't know, Matt. But I truly hope he has not. He is a good person, a rarity I have rarely ever seen in this world," she replied quietly. "It would be painful to have to kill him."

He had to agree. Connor was one of the rare few, the truly good people in the world. Matt would be rather upset if he had to kill the young man. "We'll have no choice if he does," he replied at last.

* * *

The alarm went off for nearly ten minutes before he managed to stir. One arm slid out from beneath the blankets and shut off the devil machine, then hung lifelessly over the side of the bed. Connor felt like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe. His joints ached, his head weighed a thousand pounds, and his limbs were too heavy. Sweat had the sheets plastered to his skin, but he shivered with chill. He really, _really_ hoped he wasn't coming down with something.

His mobile chimed from the bedside table. Cracking open one eye, he managed to flip it open and squinted at the screen; it was a text.

_Anomaly alert. Meet you at the construction site on 78th and Park—SH_

A low, throaty growl left his throat. Why couldn't she ever get a day? Then he saw the time. Connor rubbed vigorously at his eyes, blinking rapidly. The clock on his mobile said 11:39 a.m. He dropped the mobile and looked at his watch. Same thing. He'd slept the entire night through and well into the afternoon. Cutter was going to absolutely _kill_ him. However, not even the wrath of the professor was enough to light a fire under him. Moving with slow, sluggish movements, he got one foot on the carpet…then the other…managed to sit up. His entire body felt oddly heavy and waterlogged. Yawning so wide he almost cracked her jaw, he pushed up and got ready in zombie mode, unable to keep his eyes open for very long. A vague corner of his mind wondered why Abby hadn't bothered to wake him up. Maybe she was still too afraid of him.

He barely managed to keep from driving off the road on the way to the address Stephen had texted him, drinking enough coffee to give himself caffeine poisoning in an attempt to wake up some. It didn't do much except for make him feel sick _and_ jittery. Great. By the time he pulled up to the construction site, he was wired, sore, and nauseated. Fan-bloody-tastic. Cutter, Jenny, Stephen, Becker, and Abby were already there and waiting. As he got out and walked over, he asked Abby, "Why didn't you get me up this morning?"

"Tried. You told me to piss off and rolled over," the blond answered, arms folded across her stomach.

Oh. He didn't have any memory of that, but whatever. "Right," he mumbled, reaching up with one hand to rub at his eyes, trying to get the sleep out of them. He'd just slept nearly 15 hours, why was he still so damn _tired?_

"Maybe you ought to go back to the ARC," said Jenny. "You aren't looking too hot there, Conn."

He couldn't _stand_ the brightness outside; it was doing nothing good for the headache steadily pounding behind his temples. Reaching in one pocket, he took out a pair of dark sunglasses and slipped them on, alleviating the harsh glare of sunlight. "Not really. I might be coming down with something, too. Probably a bug going around," he replied.

Jenny took a step back from him and covered her mouth with one sleeve. "Stay over there, then. I've got enough problems as it is without catching the flu," she replied, but he saw the sparkle in her eyes and knew that she was smiling behind the jacket sleeve.

"Thanks, love, your sympathy is entirely underwhelming," he replied dryly, but a small grin pulled at the corners of his mouth nonetheless. "Where's the anomaly, then?"

Jenny lowered her arm and jerked her head towards the partially-built building behind them. Abandoned tools and lengths of piping were in random piles around the place, sheets of black tarp fluttering in the slight breeze besides concrete mixers and forklifts. "Just appeared a few minutes ago. No sign of any creature yet," she answered.

"Show me," Connor prompted. Technically speaking, he wasn't supposed to come back to work just yet, but he'd already spent three weeks out of the game, sitting around doing nothing in a hospital room, and the stagnation had nearly driven him up the wall. He'd get back to work as soon as possible, if only to alleviate the boredom. As he started forward, though, points of light exploded behind his eyelids like fireworks, darkness blooming in their wake. Invisible insects swarmed across his skin in a frenzied swarm, and his muscles went rigid before taking on the consistency of Jell-O. He slumped to the ground, the back of his head hitting the door of the car with a solid _thunk._

And then Cutter was at his side, concern written across his features, one hand hovering just above his shoulder like he was uncertain about touching him. "Connor? Connor, are you alright?" he asked. His normally-mild Scottish burr was more pronounced when he became anxious or worked up.

His mind felt blanketed in fog, and his tongue was oddly thick in his mouth, making speaking difficult and awkward. "M'fine," he mumbled at last, even though he felt far from it.

Abby was crouching at his other side, frowning in concern, a line between her brows. "Maybe you should head home, instead," she suggested. "I'll give you a lift back. You shouldn't drive like this."

"I'm sick, not drunk," Connor protested as he struggled to sit up.

Cutter took him by the arm and helped him to his feet. "You just fainted standing up. Getting behind the wheel right now isn't the best idea," he said. "Go home, get some rest. We can probably manage without you for one more day."

_"'Probably'?"_ he repeated, arching one eyebrow at the older man sceptically.

"We _can_ manage," the professor corrected. "Now scram, carrier monkey. I'm not looking to catch swine flu."

He could see the spark of humour in Cutter's eyes and knew he was only teasing. "I hope you catch whatever I've got," he shot back, and the Scotsman gave him a small grin in reply.

Abby gently pulled at his arm. "C'mon, you. Let's get you home," she said.

* * *

After she'd dropped him at the flat and went back to the ARC, Connor was quite grateful that she'd taken him home. He'd felt like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe this morning, but now he felt like something that'd been trampled by a stampede of angry bulls. His vision kept going all wonky, his breath came in raspy little pants, and his skin was hot to the touch. His headache was back in full force, and now it was accompanied by heaves of nausea that came and went, his stomach in knots. He lay sprawed across the couch, one arm thrown over his eyes; the lights were all far too bright, glaring painfully in his eyes, even when he closed his eyes.

Suddenly bile surged up into his throat, and he clapped a hand to his mouth, staggering up and tripping his way across the flat to the bathroom. Connor fell to his knees on the cold tile floor, vomiting up everything he'd eaten that day. When the terrible heaving stopped, he gripped the edge of the sink and pulled himself up into a standing position; he turnt on the tap and rinsed the God-awful taste out of his mouth, head spinning.

Both hands on the edge of the sink for support, he looked at himself in the mirror. He'd always been fair, but now he was _pale,_ a stark contrast to the flags of red fever-colour standing out on his cheeks. His face looked thin and drawn, gaunt. Tangled black hair hung just past his ears, unwashed and unkempt. His eyes were wide and preternaturally bright, so dark they looked entirely black, and dark purplish shadows lingered beneath them like bruises. He looked like an addict in need of a fix.

There was no doubt in his mind anymore. Connor was sick. Very sick.


	6. Caretakers

When Connor woke up in the morning, he wanted to die. Everything _hurt._ He ached in places he didn't even know he had places. His back was something made up of torn-up iron, his shoulders were as heavy as a lead bar, and his bones were solid steel. He knew that he was sick because if this was being well, then life was not worth living. Every breath he took ached in his lungs and chest, and swallowing burned his throat. His sinuses were congested, so he could only breathe through his mouth, and pain throbbed through his head as if someone had taken the business end of a railroad spike to his temple and was now slowly pounding it in. Movement sent pain rippling across his sore muscles and swollen joints, and the pain was not going away. In fact, it seemed to only be getting worse, and now his body could not seem to decide upon a temperature. One moment he shivered uncontrollably, and the next he felt as though burning from within. Despite the discomfort and pain he was in, exhaustion sank its claws into him and yanked him down into the realm of sleep.

* * *

_His dreams are confusing, full of red and black, flickering lights, and flashes of pain. Even in sleep, his body burns with agony. Fire sweeps its way through him, flames curling their way around his body, licking through every cell and fibre and molecule. But now, he sees it. It's very confusing._

_He sees himself, lying on a cold metal table in a hospital. No, not a hospital. A morgue. He's dead. His body is white and cold, stripped naked but for the white sheet that covers him from the waist down. Connor shivers to see it, no matter that it's just a dream. Other-Connor still bears the scars from the Predator attack, two long lines that curve down his side from the tender spot beneath his arm around to his hip, though they look old, years instead of weeks. Connor recognises the other scars that mark the other's body, and he knows the story behind each one. This one is from his childhood, when Little Charles accidentally knocked him out of the tree they were climbing and he fell on the fence. This one is from when he was nine and Cora pushed him off his skateboard. This one is from Shyra burning his arm with her cigarette. These ones are from Loren lashing him with a leather belt._

_The door of the morgue whispers open, and he turns to look. Two figures come into the room; he realises with a chill that he's seen them before, when he was in the hospital. The light and the darkness, the featureless beings that exist beyond the parametres of the physical. They glide forward without a sound, coming to stand on either side of Other-Connor, hovering over him. They begin cutting into his flesh, removing a little bit of him for themselves._

_One piece for me, one piece for you. One for me, one for you…_

_The pain of it is indescribable. It is everywhere, all at once, burning and ripping and tearing through him, but it is doing more than just hurting. It is changing him. Each piece they take from him is transformed. Twisted and shattered and rebuilt into something new. The darkness forms its own new pieces by adding a little bit of itself to his pieces, making them dark and strong, and the light forms new pieces for itself, different from the darkness but just as powerful, just as strong, crafted with a little bit of the light mingled into his pieces instead of dark._

_One for me, one for you…_

_Once they've stripped him down bare, nothing left of him, not even bones, and reformed all his pieces into something new and unique, they put him back together, like a big human puzzle. The dark pieces lay alongside the light pieces, their edges knit together, and they become a unified force instead of a scattering of bits and bobs. He is not light, nor is he dark. He lays between the two, walking on a tightrope between two forces of nature. Dark and light. Chaos and order. Sun and moon. Fire and water. Life and death. Growth and decay. Earth and air. He is both and he is neither, something brand-new and never before seen._

_As the final piece is put back where it belongs, he feels a powerful _yank,_ as if an invisible, giant hand just grabbed on to him and pulled. Suddenly he isn't an invisible presence hovering in the corner of the morgue. He's inside the body lying on the autopsy table, lying on his back on the cold metal surface. He is breathing again, and his heart is beating once more. His eyes open slowly to see the two figures towering over him._

_"You are the scion," they say in unison. Their voices are terrible and wonderful, aloud and in his head, a bellow and a whisper, a screech and a song, all at the same time. "You are the only one of your kind and will be so until you find the others of your blood. We are yours and you are ours. Remember. Darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always equate to good."_

_Connor wants to speak, to ask questions, but then a flare of agony rips through him. His back arches off the table, and he screams._

* * *

"How's he doing?" asked Matt in a low voice, peering out the windows of the flat to make sure they wouldn't be interrupted. He rather liked this flat. It was large and spacious, very homey, with a collection of reptilian pets. The Coelurosauravus was perched on his shoulder, tail curled around his neck, perfectly at ease with him. The two diictodon circled his feet, tugging at his trouser legs, trying to entice him to play.

Sitting in the loft, perched on the edge of the bed, the Huntress was lightly stroking Connor's dark hair, brushing it back out of his pale face. "He's well into the infection, and he's holding on," she replied.

In their time, far into the future, the reactions occurring inside Connor Temple's body at the moment were commonplace, especially within the Adonai Initiative. But now, in this time, any doctor or scientist would've been fascinated – and baffled – by what was happening inside his body during this sickness. It made absolutely no rational sense. Respiration had lowered to fourteen breaths per minute. Heart rate up to 160 – higher than astronauts under the g-load of liftoff. Blood pressure at 190/100. Body temperature down to a low 33.2°C. An electroencephalogram would've shown that his alpha waves were no longer waves at all, but great, jagged spikes reminiscent to the Andes Mountains – the hallmark of extreme concentration as well as the brain's signature of imagination. His body was burning energy that seemed to be coming from nowhere and seemed to be going nowhere as well.

She leant over him, dark hair spilling over her shoulders to curtain around their faces, ringlets swaying slightly. His teeth were gritted, eyes screwed closed, and every now and again, a whimper of pain would escape his lips. She knew the pain he had to be going through; she could still remember her own infection. Feeling the agony, wishing it would stop, praying for death if it meant ending the pain. She remembered the dreams as well. Most were delusional nonsense brought on by the sickness as her body temperature spiked and plummeted, but some were different. She remembered a figure made out of light cutting her apart, reforming her into something new, rebuilding her. According to Langley, nearly everyone had the dream, that it was a kind of vision of the Adonai strain they were infected with. The Elysian was the light, and the Charbydion was the darkness, though neither was truly good nor evil. They were merely power, energy, and it depended upon how they were used that made them good or bad.

_I hope he'll be Elysian. We'll be even, then. Three of each,_ she thought, lightly brushing his hair back again. It was just as soft as it looked, like warm silk gliding through her fingers.

"Emily?"

She lifted her head to see Matt standing at the top of the stairs leading into the loft, the Coelurosauravus, Rex, curled on his shoulder; the prehistoric lizard chirped and swooped across the loft to land on Connor's still form. When he didn't move or respond, Rex curled up on the pillow beside his master's head. She offered their leader a small smile. "He'll live, Matt. I know that he will."

The Irish Hunter stepped into the loft, moving with the silent, fluid grace of a great cat, just hovering on the line between feline and predatory, a stance that said he was aware of every muscle and joint in his body and possessed total control over each one. Not quite a slink, but something damned close to it. As he crossed the loft, he made sure to look around, taking in everything he saw. A bedroom and its contents, he found, could be quite revealing as to a person's character. Connor's clothes were lying about, comic books stacked by the bed, all of his sci-fi movies in a precarious tower. But he didn't just read comic books. There were more books in unsteady piles near his bed, and Matt knelt to look at the titles. He liked crime, mystery, and suspense. Lots of Stephen King, Robin Cook, James Patterson, and Dean Koontz. But there was also Sun Tzu's _The Art of War,_ a thick book on physics, another on mathematics, and several on paleontology and paleozoology. Plenty on dinosaurs, that was for certain. Sci-fi books – no surprise there; according to his youngest teammate, Temple was quite a nerd – but also, good Lord, a separate little pile of romance novels, complete with pink, bodice-ripping covers. _A man of hidden depths,_ he thought. "Perhaps," was all he said in answer.

Sitting back, Emily allowed herself to relax, letting her vision go unfocused just slightly, and his colours swam into view. As an Elysian, part of her gift was seeing these colours and reading into them. So she did. The first thing she saw was a layer of roiling red-black-grey that signified his pain and sickness and confusion. It smothered his entire aura, but when she looked past it, peeling away those dark layers, she could see what lay underneath. Most of the colours were green – emerald, fern, jade, moss – but there were also traces of soft indigo, rosy pink, lemon yellow, midnight blue, and dragon's blood scarlet. In these colours, Connor Temple was revealed. Creativeness. Intelligence. Bravery. Tender compassion and kindheartedness. Loyalty. But there was more. Fear. Disquiet. Pain. Terrible loneliness and desolation. Helpless to protect himself but longing for the chance to prove himself. A deep-buried instinct, an aching desire to love and be loved in return, craving any sort of contact, anything to show he wasn't as worthless as everyone said that he was.

Blinking rapidly and allowing the colours to fade away, Emily sat back and looked at the pale young man curled up with new consideration. Her hand went out once more to stroke his hair, though now it was more comforting. Rarely did she ever allow herself to feel much of anything for a human, knowing that it was unwise, considering how often they travelled and how easily humans were killed, but she made an exception for him. Not just because he was on the verge of possibly being one of them, but because there were so few people like him. Usually someone that experienced the kind of pain he did, went through the torment and isolation he had, they would draw into themselves, become cold and distant in an attempt to protect themselves from further harm. They gave up on the idea of tender emotions because they no longer believed in them, no longer believed that other people could be kind. But Connor didn't. He'd been hurt more times than she could imagine, not just physically but emotionally and mentally. But he didn't pull away. He didn't turn cold. He was still warm and tender and exposed, always reaching out for others, still believing that there was goodness to be found. She had to appreciate that kind of strength.

There was a light brush on her shoulder, and she lifted her head. Matt held a finger to his lips for silence, then whispered in a voice too low for humans to hear, "The female is on the stairs. Out the window."

Emily nodded, patted Connor's hair once more, then rose; they slid out of the loft window, lightly crossing the rooftops and heading back to their positions.

* * *

Abby came back up the stairs into the flat, nudging the door closed with one foot. "Conn, I'm home!" she called loudly. Silence. "Connor?" she called again. Silence. She dropped her bag on the table and made her way up into the loft, wondering if he was asleep. It would be strange, considering that it was barely sundown. But when she reached the top of the stairs, her heart surged into her throat. "Oh, God, Connor."

Her flatmate was curled up in the middle of the bed, Rex making anxious circles near his head, chirping insistently. Sid and Nancy had managed to climb up on the bed and were nudging at him with their heads, making distressed grunts. Connor was coughing, breathing raspily, shivering in near convulsions. She hastened over to him, climbing up onto the bed beside him, brushing his hair back out of his face with one hand. He wasn't running a fever, though, but was actually freezing cold, as if he'd just stepped out of a freezer. His eyes were closed tight, hands fisted around the bedsheets. "Connor? Connor? Can you hear me?" she asked softly, but he only shivered and moaned. A surge of fear bubbled up in her, and she pulled out her mobile, speed-dialing a number she knew by heart.

It rang only once. _"Hello?"_ said Cutter's familiar Scottish burr.

"Cutter, it's Abby. You've got to get over to the flat right now. Something's wrong with Connor."


	7. Hunters

The moment that Cutter walked into the loft, he knew that Abby was right. Connor was very, _very_ ill. The student was curled up and shivering, pale as bleached bone, breath rasping; his face was thin and drawn, head and shoulders cradled in Abby's lap. Their illegal pets were on the bed, looking just as upset as their mistress. Rex was hopping about beside Connor's head, and the two diictodons were circling and nudging at his hands in attempt to coax reaction out of him. "Oh, Lord, Temple," Cutter murmured, walking across the cluttered loft.

"He's freezing, and I can't get him to wake up," Abby said, her voice strained with worry. Her blue eyes were shining with a sheen of tears as she stroked his hair with one hand.

Cutter placed his fingertips against the boy's pale throat. _Freezing_ was a bit of an understatement; the boy's skin was icy, marble-cold. His pulse was racing, too, but his breathing was far too slow. For a moment, his mind raced, but then the pieces snapped back together. "Lift up his shirt. Look at his side," he said, gesturing to Connor's left side where the Predator had clawed him.

Abby gently rolled the fabric of his shirt up to expose his side, and they both gasped aloud. The long, curving marks that raked down his side from underarm to hip were closed up and already mostly healed, but now there was a dark vein map spreading out from the scars, a visible latticework of blood vessels that spread across his entire side. "Infection?" she asked.

"C'mon, let's get him back to the ARC. Maybe the medics will know," Cutter said. Abby slid aside, nudging away her pets so the professor could slide both arms beneath the young man's thin form and lift him up. Cutter felt sick in his stomach with the sudden realisation that this was the same way that he'd carried Connor out of the Cretaceous forest, pale and cold; he just prayed that his student wouldn't end up dead this time, either.

* * *

"This doesn't make any sort of sense," said Palmer, the ARC chief medic. She was sometimes called the Amazon, given that she stood an impressive 6'5 in her bare feet, an even 6'6 with her boots on. "I have never seen an infection this severe without a fever. His respiration is far too low, his heart's going mad, and his blood pressure is through the roof. It doesn't make a lick of sense."

Connor was lying on one of the cots in the medical bay, looking small and frail; Abby hovered over him, holding one of his pale hands in hers, trying to rub some warmth back into his cold fingers.

Cutter ran both hands back through his hair. "What about his bloodwork? Did anything come up?" he asked, pacing despite himself. His entire body felt wired with energy; he had come far too close to losing his student once already and felt ill seeing Connor so sick. Standing nearby, Stephen, Jenny, Sarah, and Becker looked just as uneasy.

Palmer opened the file with Connor's name on it – it was thicker than anyone else's, Cutter noticed – and raked her eyes down the pages. "Yeah, it came up with some…interesting results. And _interesting_ is an understatement. I've studied pathology, virology, oncology, everything to do with infections. I am the go-to for germs, but I have never seen anything like this before," she replied, staring at the pages; her bushy red ponytail quivered as she shook her head. She looked up at Cutter helplessly. "I'm sorry, Professor, but I don't know what I'm looking at here."

"And you won't for another hundred years."

Everyone in the room either swore, gasped, or jumped at the sudden, unfamiliar voice speaking, and they all whirled around towards the source of the voice. Standing in the doorway of Medical was a tall, lean man wearing dark jeans, combat boots, and a dark leather jacket zipped up to his throat; his brown hair was cropped military short, a bit of stubble shadowing his jaw. His eyes, though, were the most striking thing about his face. They were blue, a brilliant, perfectly clear shade of blue that was almost crystalline, a humanly impossible eye colour. As Becker and Stephen both drew their guns, he lifted both hands. "At ease," he said in a soft-spoken voice laden with a melodious Irish brogue.

"Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?" demanded Jenny in a cutting tone.

The man kept his hands up, showing that he wasn't armed, and he didn't move, appearing entirely at ease with having two pistols pointed at his head. "I am unarmed, I am not here to cause anyone any harm. Quite the opposite. I'm here to help your friend, and I would very much appreciate if you would put those down," he said, glancing between Stephen and Becker as he spoke the last bit.

"And what would you even know – ?" Cutter began to say, tone heated.

The Irishman cut him off, never raising his voice. "You are Nicholas Alexander Cutter, Professor of Evolutionary Zoology and Archaeology, 38 years old, born 19th of November in 1970, in Glasgow, Scotland. The young man lying on the bed over there is Connor Andrew Temple, your student, 24 years old, born 29th of October, 1985, in Bradford, Yorkshire. He is the youngest of ten children, his father died when he was six, his mother is still living. The pretty little thing sitting next to him is his flatmate, Abigail Sarah Maitland, former zookeeper at Wellington Zoo, expert in herpetology, 26 years old, born 1st of April in 1983, in Greater Yarmouth. Her mother is an alcoholic, her father died when she was two, and she has only one sibling, a half-brother, Jackson Benjamin Maitland, five years younger." He paused and glanced around the room at everyone else. "Shall I go on? Because I can do this for every single one of you."

Cutter clenched his jaw tightly, so hard that he felt his teeth shift in their sockets. "You know us. Who the hell are _you?"_ he ground out.

"Matthew Anderson," he replied, and as Jenny opened her mouth, he went on, "And I am here…because your friend there – " He pointed to Connor's thin form, still curled up in the cot with Abby hovering over him protectively. " – is infected with a strain that is far beyond your medical expertise because it was passed on to him from a Predator, which, as you all know, is from the future. You can't help him because your medicine hasn't advanced enough."

Neither Stephen nor Becker had lowered their weapons, and now the tracker spoke through gritted teeth. "Alright, _Matt,_ listen. Connor is my closest friend. He is the closest thing I have to a little brother. You know who we are, and now we know why you're here, but that still doesn't explain _why,"_ he spat. "Why do you want to help him? What is it to you?"

Matt, if that was even his real name, let out a heavy sigh. "Look, this could be explained a lot easier if there wasn't a gun aimed at my head – "

"Wrong answer," Stephen snarled.

"Okay, then. As I said, Connor is infected with a strain of virus from the future. The survival rate for this virus isn't even in the double digits, and if he does live through the next 48 hours, the virus will have changed him on a _chromosomal level_. It will alter his very DNA, and he will wake up _very_ different," the Irishman replied. "I know this because I survived it. I am here because if he wakes up – "

_"'If'?"_ Cutter repeated.

"Yes, Professor. If. Single-digit survival rate, remember? _If_ he wakes up, he will be extremely disoriented and unsettled. As I said, I survived it, so I know how it feels. I'm here to keep him from panicking, because he'll wake up in a panic, and there is a good chance that he will have enough terrified adrenalin going through him to throw a grown man across a will need me and the other members of my team around to ensure he doesn't hurt himself or others," replied Matt coolly; his gaze flickered around the room. "Look, you don't have to bother with the Official Secrets Act and the secrecy thing, not with us. We already know everything about you lot. You wrangle creatures that travel into the wrong time periods through space-time tears called anomalies, from past and future. I know."

"How do you know?" Jenny demanded, not liking the idea of anyone knowing everything about them.

Matt's crystalline blue eyes shifted towards her. "I and my team are from the future where this virus is from. The ARC is a major part of it," he replied. "Now, please. I'm asking to let my team come in here and look after him."

"And if we say no?" Cutter asked quietly.

The Irishman shook his head slowly. "I'm asking for my team to come in here. If you say no, then we won't come in. We'll just take Connor somewhere else," he replied.

"You'd kidnap him?" Abby said, her hands curling around the young man's sleeve protectively.

"Have no fear, little warrior. We wouldn't hurt him, just help him through the sickness until he was well," Matt answered.

Cutter paused, gritting his teeth. He hated to admit it, but he wasn't seeing another option. None of them knew what was happening with Connor, not even their medics. They didn't know what was happening to him. They didn't know what was wrong. But this man did. None of them knew anything about him, but he was the only one who had any sort of clue what was happening to their nerd. "Fine," he ground out at last.

"Nick – " several voices started to protest.

"No. He's the only one who knows what's happening to Connor," he spat, then looked at Matt again. "Fine. Help him."

The other man inclined his head slightly, a small bow. "I'll bring my team in."

"Your team?"

"Yes. There's five of us. We're called Hunters."

* * *

"You silver-tongued devil, you," murmured the ginger Hunter with a tiny smile as he slipped past Matt's side. "Didn't actually think you'd get us inside."

"Never underestimate the power of communication," he replied just as quietly, taking care to keep his voice low enough not to be heard by the humans. Cutter and his team were watching with matching glowers; they didn't like this situation, and he couldn't exactly blame them.

"Yeah, communication. And use of your disciplines," added Emily under her breath as she checked Connor's pulse and breathing rates, gauging his temperature.

Matt bit his tongue on the fact that he hadn't actually used his disciplines to convince the human team. It probably wouldn't have worked, anyways – they were all too damn stubborn, too independent, to be easily bent to his will. He really had won his way in by doing a lot of talking and, as his fellow Hunter so eloquently put it, being a silver-tongued devil. But there was no point in telling her that. She wouldn't believe it, no matter that it was the truth, simply to take the mickey out of him.

"He doesn't smell right." The irritable young Hunter was skulking over in a corner, looking unpleasant and scowling; he kept running his fingers along the edges of his knife hilt, glaring at the still form of young Connor on the cot.

His brother leant towards him and hissed, "Shut it, Ethan."

"Piss off, Danny, he _doesn't smell right,"_ he spat back. Glancing towards Matt and Emily, he continued, "Don't say you don't notice it either. He's not right, Anderson. He's not _right."_

The Irishman gritted his teeth in frustration. He'd had it up to _here_ with this foul-tempered Hunter, and be he Danny's brother or no, he was about _thisclose_ to teaching the insolent whelp a vicious, bloodied lesson. At the same time, though, he had noticed it as well. Usually, by now, an infected would begin to smell less human and more like an Adonai, but Connor didn't, not quite. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it definitely wasn't normal. He hoped that it wasn't a sign of a double-strain infection.

So absorbed in his thoughts was he that he hardly noticed when Maitland came up to them slowly and cautiously. He watched her closely, seeing how she was hesitant to approach. Not surprising. Humans didn't know it, but their hesitation came from their own survival instincts, the same way a deer would hesitate to approach a wolf. Her subconscious instinct recognised him as a predator and was digging its heels in. Still, her concern for her flatmate was strong enough to pull her closer, until she was almost within touching distance. "When will he wake up?" she asked at last.

"I don't know. It varies depending upon the individual. Sometimes it's a few hours, sometimes it's a few days," he replied.

Abby bit her lip anxiously. "What if he doesn't wake up?" she whispered, more to herself than him.

Matt leant a little closer. "He will. He's stronger than you imagine, Abby."

"Maybe we ought to see just how strong," Ethan snarled. He strode forward, reaching for Connor.

Before any of them could move, one pale hand snapped up with superhuman speed and gripped Ethan's wrist so tightly they could hear the tiny bones in his wrist shifting. Ethan let out a choked noise of surprise, and they saw the muscles in his arms strain as he tried to pull away but failed. Connor opened bleary eyes to glare up at him. "Who the fuck are you supposed to be then?" he growled out.


	8. Anomaly

**A/N: sorry for the wait. I was going to do this yesterday, but the power was out, and no power, no internet. Anyways... I love the support that this story has been getting. Of course, that's not to say that I wouldn't like to see more reviews. Please? I love reviews. Who doesn't?**

**Also, just a note. Text that is underlined and italicised **_like this_ **is used when two people are speaking telepathically instead of aloud. Regular** _italics_** are used for emphasis and internal thoughts. Just for clarity's sake. Enjoy.**

* * *

"Connor," Abby gasped in relief.

The dark-haired young man violently shoved Ethan's hand away from him; he staggered backwards a step, massaging his wrist with the opposite hand, teeth gritted. His black eyes rolled from Ethan to Matt to Emily and Danny to Jess, tension coiling in his muscles, and his lips drew back from his teeth in a feral expression, a low hiss of air escaping from between his clenched teeth. Moving so fast that he seemed to blur, he sprang off the cot to his feet, remarkably spry for someone that'd been deathly sick a few hours ago. It was almost like a magic trick. One minute he was on the bed, and then hey, presto Connor-o, he was on his feet, hands curled not into fists but rather like claws, fingers hooked and tense. Instantly, the Hunters moved as well, swift and silently. Ethan remained where he stood, but the other four moved quickly. They didn't block the exits – that would've been _inviting_ a fight to start – and instead moved to stand between Connor and the rest of the ARC team, hastily pushing Abby back with the others.

"Who are you?" he ground out. His voice sounded different somehow. There was a low undertone to it that sounded eerily like a growl, grating up from the depths of his chest, and he shifted into a crouch that seemed more animal than human. "Get out of my way."

"Not until you listen," Matt replied, his voice low and soft, calm in contrast to the young man's heated snarl. "You're sick, Connor. You have been for over a week now. It's an infection passed to you when you were attacked by the Predator in the forest. You aren't thinking straight – "

"I'm thinking pretty sodding straight," Connor snapped back. "Get _out_ of my _way."_

"No. You _aren't_ thinking straight, and you could hurt yourself or them. We're not here to hurt anyone, rather to prevent it," Matt answered. He was grateful that none of the humans were trying to protest him, weren't interrupting or speaking at all. In fact, they all seemed to starstruck to respond except to gape in disbelief. It was a small thing, but he knew how volatile an in-betweener could be. Casting a well-trained Hunter's eye across the young man, he saw that Connor was in the limbo state at the moment, caught between being a human and being one of them, either Elysian or Charbydion. He'd be that way for a few days more, still in danger of rejecting the change and dying at any moment, but then he would be one of them. But it was still dangerous. In-betweener or no, Connor would still have the raw strength of the Adonai and volatile human emotions to go with. A very bad combination.

Connor hissed at him again, air spitting out from between his teeth; it was a warning, as dangerous as the buzz of swarming bees. It didn't sound like a human trying to imitate a cat, it sounded _real_ and all the more dangerous for it. "You shouldn't be here. This isn't your place. It's _my_ home. You can't be here," he muttered, so softly it was almost inaudible.

Matt blinked in surprise. That was new. The kid wasn't in that hyperaggressive state most in-betweeners were, where he was pissed at everything and everyone simply _because_. He was mad because they were there and he didn't know who they were. Just to see how right his assumption was, Matt carefully began to edge backwards, closer to Stephen and Cutter, who stood behind him; Connor snarled again, showing his teeth. When he moved forward again, allowing more space between him and the humans, the growl petered away.

"Connor?"

In his head, the Irishman cursed. Didn't this girl know how to _listen?_ "Abby, don't – "

"Shut up," she spat coldly, but when she looked back to her flatmate, her blue gaze went soft and loving. "Conn? You hear me?"

Slowly, hesitantly, Connor's gaze slid from Matt to her. Some of the feral light disappeared from his eyes, and a degree of tension left him as well, hands relaxing from the claws they'd formed. "Abbs..." he said quietly.

"Yeah, it's me, Conn. It's alright. Everything's alright," she said in that same gentle voice, slowly stepping forward. Danny moved as if to stop her, but a ferocious, ripping snarl tore its way from Connor's throat. Matt shook his head slightly, and Danny lowered his hand back to his side. "Oi, look at me. Connor, don't look at them, look at _me,"_ Abby insisted; Connor's growling softened as he looked back towards her. She let out a soft breath of relief. "That's right. You're okay. They're telling the truth. You were sick, very sick. We were scared you might not make it. They're just here to help you. We all are. Please, Connor. I'm not asking you to trust them. I want you to trust me."

The young man stood tense for a moment, indecision flickering in his gaze, but then he moved, again so fast it was like magic. Matt reached for his knife, but there was no blood or screaming. Connor grabbed Abby's wrist and yanked her forward against him, both arms wrapping around her body. He hugged her tightly, face buried in the crook of her neck; she hugged him back, reaching up to stroke the back of his hair. Matt blinked in shock. This was…beyond different. No in-betweener should be able to control their temper and their strength, not like this. "Are you alright, love?" he asked in a low murmur, not taking his eyes from the Hunters, looking over her shoulder at them warily.

"We're fine, we're all fine," she answered.

Taking care not to move too quickly, Emily shifted closer towards him. "Matt, what is this?" she asked softly.

He could only shake his head slightly. "I...do not know," he admitted, four words that he rarely ever used. But it was true. He _didn't_ know what was going on here. He didn't know why Connor was exercising control that no in-betweener ought to have, the kind of control that was only achieved after making the full transition. He didn't know how the young man was thinking so clearly and behaving so normally. It was bizarre. _An anomaly,_ he thought wryly. _How fitting._

Connor lowered his arms from Abby and turned towards Matt. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Matt Anderson."

"Right then, Matt Anderson, move out of the way. You're making me very...uneasy. And get your creepy mate out from the corner back there. I don't like him back there," Connor added, jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards Ethan, who was indeed skulking in the corner glaring at them with rage in his dark eyes.

At this, the other man bristled in outrage. "Just who the hell do you think – ?" he started, reaching for his knife, but Danny hastily stepped forward and placed one hand on his brother's shoulder with perhaps a bit more force than was necessary, a warning in his eyes.

Matt glanced to his team and gave a small nod, and they moved away, relaxing their defencive positions. Connor watched them with all the calculating intensity of a predator sizing up its contender and wondering how best to defeat it. Once they had moved back to the other side of the room, standing opposite the human team, he relaxed and turned back to the others, who all came to embrace their fellow teammate.

As he leant back against the wall, arms crossed in front of his chest, he felt a light brush against the edges of his mind and knew without hesitation that it was Emily. Even though he didn't have quite the same capacity for the mental disciplines, he could still maintain a silent conversation with her. So he reached out in ways that were not physical, shivering imperceptibly as the temporary link established itself. _What are you thinking, Emily?_ he queried.

_I am thinking that we have come across something very new, Matt,_ she replied, only the slightest furrow between her brows betraying her internal confusion. Otherwise, her face was a perfect, flawless mask that could not be read into, an expression that had been schooled into them all. _He should not be in control like this. By all means, he ought to be going mad, throwing things and having a bloody fit. Yet there he stands,_ she added, eyes not straying from Connor, now sitting on the edge of a chair with his team surrounding him. Whatever animosity that had lain between them before was forgotten, if only temporarily, as they rejoiced over the fact that the youngest of their member was no longer hovering at death's doorstep. It was like the Hunters were not even in the room. Even though they were used to it, Matt detected a slight bristle of indignity from Emily's thoughts. In their own time, when they walked into a room, conversation ceased and nobody turned their backs to them; it stung a bit, to be so blatantly ignored by humans that were, by all rights, their prey and a lesser creature than they were. _What do you think this means?_

_I'm not sure,_ he answered reluctantly, loathe to say it. _But, miraculously enough, Ethan is right. He doesn't smell right, not for being this far into the infection. I don't recognise it. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it somehow seems very familiar._

Emily tilted her head to the side inquisitively, the motion so small that it was invisible to all but him. _I noticed it as well. It is strange yet familiar at the same time, like a sense of deja vu._ They were both silent for a moment as they watched the humans, never letting their gazes stray far from their young charge. But then she glanced back at him, a sparkle of amusement in her dark eyes. _Don't let Ethan hear you say he was right. You'll never hear the end of it if you do._

The corner of his mouth twitched despite himself, and Matt shook his head slightly. _Very true._

"Oi, Matt Anderson," called Connor.

He and Emily automatically withdrew the mental connection, severing the temporary link. "What?"

"You lot said you're here because I'm sick with something," he said, and Matt gave an affirming nod even though there had been no real question. "Well, then what's with the knives? I've never seen a doctor with anything bigger than a scalpel before. Not to say that a scalpel isn't dangerous enough. I mean, Palmer can be pretty scary with a scalpel, but I imagine that's just because she's so tall. I'm not used to being the short one."

His eyebrows rose at the rather strange ramble. He almost wondered if perhaps Connor was delirious still, but from the looks of fond exasperation on Cutter, Abby, and Stephen's faces, it was commonplace. Matt straightened up and took a half-step forward. "Well, we're not exactly doctors, in the proper sense of the word. We're called Hunters, truly. And the infection that you have is very rare and can be very dangerous if not handled properly. Seeing as how it's from the future, from our own time, it's only fitting that we're the ones to take care of it," he answered.

Connor nodded slowly as he absorbed that information. "Right. I have to warn you, though, I really don't think that my insurance covers future viruses," he said matter-of-factly, then tilted his head at Matt. "You take cash?"

The unexpected randomness of the question brought a rare laugh to his lips, and he heard Emily, Danny, and Jess echo in soft chuckles as well.

The only one not amused, unsurprisingly, was Ethan. "We're wasting our time, Anderson. This little punk is only playing with us," he spat angrily, glaring down at Connor.

The young man, however was unfazed by the dark-haired Hunter's anger. "I'm not playin' with you, mate," he replied, a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. "You're playin' with yourself, and you're about to go blind."

Ethan's face went white with outrage, and he strode forward with hand on his knife. "You little – " One hand gripped Connor's shoulder.

Before any of them could move to react, though, Connor did something none of them expected. Gripping the edges of the chair with both hands, one foot braced on the floor for balance, he rocked the chair onto its back two legs; his other foot came up with amazing celerity, catching Ethan square beneath the jaw. Had Ethan been human, the blow would've broken his jaw and probably his neck as well, but it only put a fracture in his lower jaw and loosened a few teeth. The force took him off his feet and threw him to his back on the floor, coughing and sputtering, spitting out mouthfuls of blood – he'd bitten off the tip of his own tongue. Connor put the chair back on all four legs. "I don't appreciate being shoved around, _mate,"_ he spat in warning. "You really ought to learn to keep your hands to yourself."

"Damn, Connor," Stephen muttered in disbelief. Nobody would've ever thought the slender young man had the wherewithal to kick anybody _that_ hard.

Ignoring the muttered, garbled curses Ethan spat his way, Connor looked up at Matt once more. "So...tell me about this infection."


	9. Adonai

"It's called the Adonai strain," Matt said. He and Connor sat by themselves in the young man's office; inwardly, he was still surprised at how normal Connor was acting, and how well he looked. Everyone else had been sent away on another anomaly alert, except for Matt's team, who were now being interrogated by Sir James Lester. Needless to say, the head of the ARC was not pleased with being kept out of the loop on recent developments. "It's essentially a virus, but it's more than that. It doesn't just give you an upset stomach for a few days. It changes your DNA."

Connor frowned at that, a crease between his brows. "Y'mean that the reason I'm so sick is because my _DNA_ is changing?" he asked, not liking how it sounded.

"Yes. If and when you survive the rest of the infection, you will no longer be human," said Matt, and before the young man could open his mouth, he went on. "But it's not a huge change. Look at me. Do I look any different than a human?"

"No...but you're not human?" Connor asked.

"No, I'm not. Neither are the others on my team. It's a minor change to only a few chromosomes, but even small changes in DNA make a big difference. Believe me, there has been decades upon decades of study put into the Adonai strain. We're still very closely related to humans, a few chromosomes apart, actually. Humans have 23 pairs, we have 24 pairs," Matt went on. "But that extra pair makes us a hell of a lot more dangerous than humans. I'm sure you've started to notice the effects already. Faster reflexes, greater sensory range, more strength...am I getting warmer?"

Connor nodded slowly. "Yeah, you are. What else is there?" he asked in a wary tone.

"Well...there are two branches of the Adonai strain. One is called Charbydion, the other is called Elysian. But both strains allow for us to...in layman's terms, I suppose you would say that we can use magic."

The young man's eyebrows rose. "Magic?" he repeated softly, a note of awe and disbelief in his voice, but no disdain or mocking. From what Matt knew of him, Connor was a firm believer in forces outside himself, so it shouldn't take him much to convince the lad.

"In layman's terms, I said. In actuality, we have the ability to manipulate energy and matter outside ourselves through the use of nonphysical means."

"Magic sounds cooler."

The Irishman bit back a snort of laughter. "Yes, I suppose it does. Now, the different strains have different abilities. Charbydion are better at manipulating energy, with the nonphysical and the mental. They channel energy; send something at them, they'll send it back at you double, and they have their own abilities that make them dangerous on their own. Thought transferrence, telekinesis, foresight, mental influence, memory recollection and the like. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it is. A Charbydion with the right training could read the thoughts right off the back of your skull, dig up your most guarded secrets, and drag your worst fears out of you subconscious mind. They can cripple a person without even touching them," Matt explained. He had done it before, too. He himself had reduced a grown man to tears, curled up on the foetal position on the floor with his power. "Elysians are the physical side of the Adonai. Manipulation of matter instead of the mind. They can manipulate the four cornerstone elements – earth, air, water, and fire – and all other elements are a precise combination of those elements. Lightning, for instance, is air and fire. Metal is fire and earth. Control over the cornerstones is instinctive, and the others are learnt with time and practice. Theoretically speaking, a well-trained Elysian could sink an island into the sea, call fire to the land by lightning, and open the earth beneath a person's feet."

Just as he had hoped, Connor's eyes lit up with a spark of delighted interest. "That sounds so _awesome,"_ he said. "So, can anybody be both?"

"No," Matt replied shortly. "It isn't possible for the two strains to coexist with each other. I would say oil and water, but that's not quite right. It'd be closer to describe them as halogens and alkalis. When they meet, they react violently and tear each other apart. Both are destroyed, and the infected person would die as well. The Future Predator that attacked and infected you had been infected with both strains. That's why it only wounded you and didn't kill you. It was being driven mad by the conflicting strains in its bloodstream. Even if we hadn't killed it, it would've died."

"Then...do I have both strains?" Connor asked worriedly. He really wasn't liking the idea of being torn apart from the inside; even though he knew that Matt was only being metaphorical, he was still imagining it as literal.

"No. If you had, you'd be mad by now. We know that you have one strain because of how ill you've been, but we can't tell which one you have until you make the full transition. The strains are too close in makeup to be identified during the infection period."

The young man was silent for a few moments whilst he processed the information. Matt had to wonder what was going on inside his head. Connor was considering everything that was happening to him and what it would be like if he really could do some of the things that Matt had described. He wondered if perhaps that was the reason behind his trippy dreams. _Charbydion and Elysian,_ he thought, testing the words inside his head, and another little voice in his mind replied in a whisper, _the darkness and the light._ He shook away the thought hastily. That wasn't right. Matt already said that nobody survived with both. He was one or the other...wasn't he? Pushing his own troubling, confusing thoughts aside, he turned his gaze back to the other man. Matt didn't look any different from any other human being, except for this unseen air of _danger_ that rolled off his skin, a sense of power beyond human understanding. "Which are you, then?"

"I am Charbydion, so is Ethan, the fellow you nearly kicked the teeth out of, and Jess Parker. She is quite keen on meeting you, as well. It's my understanding that you have a kindred likeness for DC and Marvel comic books," Matt replied with a slight note of fond exasperation in his voice. "Emily and Danny are both Elysians, and they're hoping you will be as well, make our numbers even."

"Right. And what happens then?" Connor asked quietly. He looked up at Matt through his lashes. "You're not going to make me leave, are you?" He wasn't sure that he could leave the ARC and the team. He was still a bit miffed over _the incident_, as it was now known, but that didn't mean he'd just up and walk away. They probably didn't think of him the same, but he saw them as his family, the family he didn't have growing up. Family might not always like each other, and they might hate each other more, but they never loved each other less.

Matt didn't even have to extend his power to feel the emotions coming off the young man. He could see the boy's reluctance to leave as clear as day, as if he'd hung a neon sign 'round his neck, and knew that Connor was very deeply tied to both the ARC and the people that worked there. They were his home and his family. "No, though you may not be able to go on anomaly alerts for a while. Being Adonai isn't something that can be ignored. You'll have enormous amounts of raw power at your disposal, and without training, you won't be able to control it. You'll end up hurting someone without meaning to. If you are Charbydion, I will teach you the control that you need, how to recognise your power and how to best use it. If you're Elysian, then Emily shall be your teacher," the other man answered, but Connor still felt as though the other man was hiding something from him, something important. But the Irishman's face was blank and neutral, unexpressive; he wondered if he always looked like that or if it was something that had been trained into him. After a moment, Matt added, "And there's the matter of disciplines."

At that, Connor sat back a little apprehensively. "Discipline?"

"Not the way you're thinking," Matt said with a chortle. "No, an Adonai discipline is a magical skill that we all have the ability to use. Some are specific to a single strain, others are ambiguous. They can be extremely useful at times. Like Elysians are best at the discipline of thaumaturgy, which is manipulation of the elements, and the discipline of auspect, which allows them to see and read people's auras. Charbydion use the disciplines of domination, which allows us to influence the minds of others, and obfuscation, which confuses and disorients the enemy. See?" he explained. "There are several different ones that can be learned, though it takes time to have any real precision. We'll teach you that too."

The other man leant back in his chair, mind truly reeling now. This was insane. Absolutely insane. He was going to be some sort of superhero! He'd be able to use magic and read minds and all the other insane things that Matt had described to him. He felt like he ought to be in a comic book. Hell, this would make a good comic book. Insane. Well and truly insane. But also...wicked cool and indubitously awesome. He was a _superhero._ Connor scrubbed both hands over his face and looked back at the Irishman with a smile on his face. "Let's do this, then."

* * *

"What d'you suppose they're talking about?" Stephen wondered, arms folded across his chest as he looked down the hallway towards Connor's office. He and Matt had gone in there a while ago, and they hadn't come out yet.

"Haven't the foggiest. Probably initiating him into their secret society," Jenny replied disdainfully.

"Connor will be thrilled," Cutter agreed, and they all chuckled.

The only one who didn't look amused was Abby, standing beside the professor with a frown on her face. She wasn't amused at all; she was worried. Even though these Hunters claimed to be there only to help, she didn't approve of the way everyone just trusted them right off the bat. In the time she'd worked in the ARC, she'd learnt to become suspicious of people who just showed up out of nowhere, especially if they knew more than they ought've. And the Hunters seemed to know _everything_ about ARC, about them, about the anomalies, and it downright unsettled her. Oh, she was grateful for their help, sure – God only knew what might've happened to Connor without them – but that didn't mean she trusted them. Something in her said that they were hiding something. It made her spine prickle with wariness every time she was near one of them, and she had learnt long ago to always trust that feeling. As Connor would've said, her spider senses were tingling. Matt made her most nervous of all. He seemed a nice enough bloke, but again, that prickly feeling in her spine screamed _danger_ at her. She didn't like the idea of him being alone with Connor, away from the rest of them, where they couldn't watch him and keep him safe. She'd never realised just how protective of him she really was, but after nearly losing him twice in less than a month, a need that had once only been subconscious was now quite conscious and ferocious in its intensity. Connor was _theirs._ He belonged to the team, to her and Cutter and Stephen and Jenny and even to Becker to a degree. He might be a geek, but he was _their_ geek, dammit, and come hell or high water, he wasn't going to be taken away.

"You're Maitland, aren't you?" hissed a voice that was rapidly becoming familiar, and she whirled to see the dark-haired bloke that Connor kicked in the jaw standing behind her. There was a dark bruise already forming on his lower jaw and chin, and spots of dried blood still flecked his skin. He was glaring down at her with a chilling expression in his eyes. They weren't just dark, they were _black,_ and entirely opaque. They gave away nothing, simply threw light back at whoever looked at them. They were the eyes of something dead, and she shivered to look at him directly. "You're the one living with that...that _freak,"_ he hissed out.

"What do you want?" Abby asked warily, fists curling at her sides.

"He's not normal. He isn't right," the bloke said in his eerie hoarse whisper, his voice like the slide of wet silk across stone. "There's something wrong in him. I can smell it."

She stood up and turned to face him completely, ignoring the way his lecherous dead eyes wandered down her form before returning to her face. "Back off him. You don't know anything about Connor," she spat back.

He gave her a crooked, slightly demented smile. "I know that he's going to cause trouble. More trouble than that git Anderson expects. And you...you're going to suffer more than anyone."

Abby barely smothered the urge to shudder at the sound of his voice, and she didn't back up, either, despite that prickling feeling screaming for her to run away as fast as she possibly could. The prickly feeling was drowned out by that new protective part of her, flaring up hot and sharp inside her, pushing aside whatever fear she felt. Lifting her chin defiantly, she glared right back at him. "Sod off before I finish what Connor started and break your jaw," she threatened.

He wasn't fazed at all by her threat, and he only smiled a little wider. "You'll see," he murmured softly as he edged backwards, sliding away from her. "You will see."


	10. Mistrust

"So you're really going to be some kind of…wizard or something when this is over?" Abby asked, feeling ridiculous for even saying the word _wizard_ in a sentence without it being mocking. They were back in the flat together after leaving the ARC, and since it was Connor's turn to pick a film, they were watching _Serenity._ She sat on the couch, and he stretched out beside her, head and shoulders in her lap. He'd explained everything Matt had told him about his sickness, about what he was becoming and the abilities that he would soon hopefully have, and she was still trying to get it straight in her mind. It seemed too mind-boggling. Magic? No way. Dinosaurs and time-travel, that was one thing, but _magic…_that one she was having trouble with.

He shook his head against her thigh without looking away from the screen. "I don't think it's really being a wizard, Abby. There's no magic wands or anything like that. Matt says that it's just being able to manipulate matter and energy. Magic sounds cooler, but it's not actual magic. Nobody's getting sawed in half or anything," he replied.

She rested and elbow on the arm of the couch, resting her cheek on her palm. Her other hand absently reached down to play with his hair, and she was pleased that he didn't brush her away. "I'm not sure about them, Connor. I'm not. Something about them…I don't trust them."

"Why not?"

"Because. They just showed up out of nowhere and pretty much asked us to just roll over and let them do whatever they want. I don't like it," she answered. She let out a heavy sigh, shaking her head as she rubbed her fingers into his scalp. When her hand paused slightly, lost in her own thoughts, he pushed his head against her hand like a cat demanding pets; smiling to herself, she continued combing her fingers through his hair. It was warm and soft, gliding between her fingers like coal silk. "D'you trust them?"

Lifting the remote, he paused the film and turned his head to look up at her. "I'm not sure. Something in me says that I have to listen to them to get through whatever this – " He gestured to himself in vague indication of the infection crawling through his veins. " – is going on with me. But another part of me says that they're dangerous. I'll have to work with them and listen to them, but…no, I don't think I trust them."

Abby nodded and stroked his hair once more. "Good," she said. She knew that he had a tendency to give trust too easily; it was his one and only fault really – that he cared too much about others, unable to guard his loving heart from people that'd take advantage of him. Giving a hesitant smile, she asked, "So I guess that Predator attack turned out alright, yeah?"

For a moment, he just looked up at her, and she feared she'd said the wrong thing too soon…but then his lips curled up in a smile. "Yeah. Guess it did, Abbs. Guess it did," he replied, turned over and pressed play on the remote, resuming the film.

* * *

Matt stood in the lab, staring at the plants potted in rows. They were large, beautiful plants, with strange colours and thorny spines and oddly shaped leaves and flowers; he had never seen anything like them before, but he found them fascinating. There were flower buds ready to burst into bloom and flowers that'd already unfurled, releasing a heady fragrance into the air. They came in all sizes and shapes and colours. The future they came from was hot and dry, dusty and barren; the only plants that grew there were tough and woody and scrubby, bristling with sharp thorns. There was never anything this soft and colourful.

The door opened with a hiss of pressurised air, and he turned to see Abby there, hand on the door, and her eyes instantly narrowed warily. "What are you doing in here?" she demanded.

"Is this your lab?" he asked, and she nodded. "Oh. My apologies. I was just looking at your plants. We don't…there's very few plants in the time I am from, and none are this beautiful. You do not mind?"

She lifted her eyebrows. "No, I guess not…here. You mind spraying that tray over there?" she asked, handing him a bottle and gesturing to a tray of plants over there.

"Of course." He took the bottle and began spraying a mist of water over the plants as she began working. "May I ask what you do in here?"

"These are plant samples from different time periods collected on anomaly alerts," she answered, still giving him cautious looks. "We're studying them to learn more about prehistoric flora."

"I see. Creatures can be understood and studied because they leave behind fossils, but plants do not fossilise as easily. This can provide insight to the environment of past times," Matt said, and she nodded agreement. "They are very beautiful, Miss Maitland. Are all of them from anomalies?"

"You can call me Abby, and no. Some of them are modern. We're trying to see if cross-pollination is possible."

He paused to study a very curious-looking plant. It was only about eight inches tall, with long, thin erect leaves that all grew from a single cluster at the ground, covered in curious reddish droplets. "What is this?" he asked.

"It's called a dewthread. It's from North America. _Drosera filiformus._ It's a carnivorous plant. The droplets on the leaves are sticky, and when insects get stuck on them, the plants digest the insect and release nutrients to be absorbed."

"And these here?" he asked, gesturing to a climbing vine wrapped around a support with a flower almost as wide as his palm, purest white with a thin yellow band running down the centre of each white petal into the heart of the flower.

_"Calonyction aculeatum._ Moonflower. It's a night-blooming flower. The petals will close soon…here." Abby walked over to the wall and pulled a book off the shelf, handing it to him. It was a field guide of wild plants. "Take a look at that." She kept an eye on him as he moved around in her lab, looking through the guide as he matched the plants to their proper names. There was a look of fascination on his face that was too real to be false. He wasn't joking, it seemed; he had rarely ever seen real, growing plants, and this lab was some sort of fantasy for him. "So…Connor told me about the sickness," she said at last.

She had the pleasure of seeing him look up at her in shock. Matt blinked several times, surprised, and let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head. "Does he not know the meaning of the word _secret?"_ he asked, more to himself than her.

Abby smirked. "Are you kidding me? Connor broke the Official Secrets Act before. You really think he'll keep quiet because you _told_ him to?" she asked with a chortle. Connor really couldn't keep his mouth shut for the life of him; not even a government act could make him shut up.

The Irishman lifted a disbelieving look to her. "He broke the Official…? God help me," he muttered.

She couldn't help but snicker again. From what she had seen of the Hunters in the past few days, these people were very…_stoic_ seemed to mild a word for their mannerisms. She hadn't heard a single one of them crack a joke or even a smile, or laugh aside from the tiniest chortle, and their faces always seemed to be set in a serious expression, as if they'd forgotten how to look any other way. The idea of someone as bright and effervescent as Connor working with them…she imagined that it'd be rougher for Matt and the others than for Connor. "You're going to have a fun time with him, I promise you," she giggled.

"Yeah, I'm starting to think so."

* * *

"Let me your arm," Emily said brusquely, holding out one hand, and Connor obediently held out his arm. She peeled back his glove and rolled up his sleeve, exposing his pale forearm; without any pretense or warning, she took up a hypodermic needle, pulled the cap off, jabbed it into his arm (_"Ow!"_) and drew out a measure of blood.

"What's that for, then?" Connor asked, rubbing at his arm as he fixed his sleeve.

"Blood test. To find out which strain you have," she replied, replacing the cap on the needle and setting it aside.

Usually, he'd have been put off by her cool, professional manner, but all of the Hunters seemed to be like that. It was like they'd forgotten how to smile or something. "Couldn't Palmer do that?" he asked, referring to their Titaness-esque chief medical officer.

The dark-haired woman shook her head, ringlets bouncing. "No. She wouldn't know what to look for. We, however, are trained to identify the signs in others in case of an infection like yours."

"Oh. So if I turn out to be an Elysian, will you be the one giving me magic lessons?" he asked. Matt said that it wasn't really magic, but hey, call a spade a spade. Danny had even _laughed_ like an actual person when Connor referred to it as magic in his earshot, and he was hoping that maybe he could get her to crack a smile too. Even a little bit.

She paused to fix him with a cool stare. "I would be responsible for teaching you the Elysian disciplines, yes."

_Swing and a miss,_ he thought. "So, is it safe for me to go out for a round at the pub tonight? Or will I be dropping dead any time soon?" he asked instead.

Her cool mask never wavered for an instant. "You've made it through your infection period, and there's no further danger of you 'dropping dead' as you so eloquently put it, so yes, it is safe," she answered.

"You don't smile very much, do you?" he asked. Emily fixed him with another icy glare, and he meekly slid off the chair and made his way to the door. "Never mind. G'night," he mumbled on his way out.

* * *

Emily plucked the results out of the machine and raked her eyes down the page. Her stomach fell into her toes, her cool façade slipping to reveal her shock. "What? This is…impossible," she whispered, staring hard at the page as if she could somehow will the words to read differently. It wasn't possible. It just _wasn't._ Yet there it was, staring her in the face in black and white. She had run the test three times now to ensure it wasn't a fluke or a mistake, but the results had come out the same over and over. Gripping the results tight in her fist, she jumped up and ran from the lab in search of Matt.

The Irishman jumped halfway out of his skin as the door of his temporary quarters burst open with a _bang,_ Emily striding in. "What's wrong?" he asked, setting aside the field guide Abby had lent him and taking in her stunned expression and wide eyes, a wild look in her face that he had never seen from her. He knew that something had to be very wrong for her to lose control like this.

"Connor's infected with both strains."

_"What?_" He rolled to his feet and walked over to her. "Emily, that's – "

"Impossible, yes, I know, but here, look at the results. I ran Connor's bloodwork, and I did it three times to ensure it was not accidental. It came out the same every time. Look at them, Matt, and tell me that I'm wrong," she replied, shoving the papers into his hands.

Smoothing out the rumpled pages, he scanned the results and frowned. "The _hell_ is this…?" he murmured quietly. He recognised all the genetic markers for the Charbydion strain, having seen them in his own bloodwork, right where they were supposed to be in the DNA chain. But the Elysian markers were right there alongside them as well. "How…how can this be?"

"I don't _know!"_ Emily replied in a distressed voice. "He's survived infection, Matt. He's still alive, and there has been no sign of madness, no indication that there's anything remotely wrong with him. But he's got both strands. This isn't a fluke." She shook her head, twisting a curl of her hair about her fingers anxiously. She looked up at him. "What do we do?"

Matt stared at the results for a moment longer, then threw them down and grabbed his knives. "We have to find Connor _now."_


	11. Unity

**A/N: two chapters up in a week, I'm on a roll! **

**Also, Sandy Lee Potts, love that you reviewed at least once during the story. Connor might be on an even keel for now, but he'll definitely start showing some crazy later on. The torture hasn't even begun yet. Just wait... (cue evil laughter)**

* * *

"Oh, look at that, he's alive! Alive, I say!" Stephen teased, affecting an overly dramatic voice as Connor walked into the pub.

"Ha-ha," the geek false-laughed in response. "You're hilarious."

The tracker turned and patted him on the back in greeting, grinning. "Glad you're back, Conn. I honestly thought we might have to call in Action Man and mount a rescue mission to pull you out of their grip," he laughed in response, not noticing or not caring when Becker winced at the unwanted moniker. Gripping Connor's shoulder in a friendly hand, he guided the young man around to sit at the bar between him and Cutter. "C'mon, have a pint on us. We haven't seen you outside in days."

"Uhm, I don't – I don't really drink," Connor replied but still hopped up to sit on the barstool anyways. Abby came 'round to sit beside him, claiming Stephen's empty chair in a flash despite the taller man's protest, beaming at the return of her flatmate. And even if he didn't really drink, he would still down a pint to see her looking at him like that. "So, how much did I miss? Was there anything supremely awesome I need to know about?" he asked as the barman set a glass full to the brim in front of him.

"We had a Platecarpus in Handel Cove," Cutter offered. "Big one, too. Nesting female; not exactly easy to get back through to the anomaly."

"Platecarpus, nice. What else?" Connor asked. He pulled the pint towards him and took a small sip. _Eugh, it's even worse than I remembered,_ he thought, resisting the urge to pull a face. Hoping that he'd soon be too buzzed to care, he took another hasty gulp of the beer.

"Flock of Sordes in a barn," Stephen supplied next.

"Sordes, really? Were they actually fuzzy?" Connor queried, and they all nodded. Sordes was a small pterosaur from the Jurassic; fossil record suggested that they were covered in a layer of thin fuzzy fur, but nobody had been able to definitively prove it. "Cool, very cool. So they were fuzzy little bats. Were they cute?" he asked, taking another drink from the glass. _Getting a little better. Must be working._

"Actually, yes," Abby laughed. "They were fuzzy and very cute. They had a lot of teeth, but they thought we were too big to eat. Cutter used his lunch to get them back through."

"Little bastards ate all my fish and chips," the professor muttered, having still not forgiven the intruders for pilfering his food.

Connor felt like putting his hands over his ears. It might've been the beer, but it felt like everything was very loud. It was far too noisy in here, and his ears were starting to ring a little bit. The lights were getting brighter as well. He rubbed at his eyes with one hand, trying to refocus, but then he felt a shiver run down his backbone, causing his entire body to shudder.

"Y'alright, mate?" asked Stephen, patting his shoulder.

Even though the tracker was speaking normally, it sounded as though he was shouting in Connor's ear, and he winced away a little bit. "Yeah, m'alright. Pint goin' to me head is all," he reassure. Even his own voice sounded too loud. Okay, the lights _really_ were too bright, and he dropped his gaze to the countertop in front of him. It was as if someone had just amped up his vision way past 20/20; he could count the grains in the faux wood of the countertop, see each individual flaw in the false paneling. This must have been what Matt and Emily warned him about: a brief period of hyper-sensitivity following the transition from human to Adonai. He knew he ought to be thrilled – he was no longer in danger of dropping dead from the infection – but he was getting dizzy from the onslaught of sound and smell and sight and even touch. His own clothes felt too rough against his skin, and he felt the insane urge to just tear off his layers as fast as possible to remove the irritation.

"Connor?" asked Abby in a low voice; she was leaning in close to him to be heard over the voices of the others. He could smell peppermint on her breath tinged with alcohol, mingling with her coconut shampoo and body lotion. He heard her heartbeat and breathing, the rustle of clothing as she moved. "Are you alright?"

"Mm…still a little queasy is all. Pint went to my head," he mumbled back.

"Should I drive you home? Matt said you had to stay in the ARC until you were better, so you can come back to the flat," she said in a gentle voice. Her hand came to rest on his back, and he felt her rub her palm up and down his spine, rubbing little circles between his shoulder blades. "Rex misses you. So do Sid and Nancy."

"Mm-hm," he murmured with a nod, eyes half-closed to try and alleviate the pain of too-bright light. Home was sounding so good to him right now. Their flat, his bed in the loft, surrounded by the familiar sights and sounds and smells of his home instead of this loud, offensive place.

Abby made their excuses to Cutter and the others as he slid off the barstool and slid on his jacket. He felt a supporting arm slide around his waist and leant gratefully into her side. Beneath his jacket, hidden from view, Connor felt her small hand pressed against his side, fingertips massaging gentle circles into his ribs. Before they could move to leave, though, five familiar shapes suddenly appeared out of the crowds, and he was suddenly standing in front of Matt Anderson. The Irishman looked…_frazzled_ was the only word that Connor could pull to mind, breathing erratically as if he'd run all the way there, disheveled and flustered. The others looked just to be in quite the same state of nervous agitation, except for Ethan, who, as per eerie usual, was stoically unmoved. "What's going on?" Abby asked, and Connor felt her little hand tighten on his waist, squeezing him closer to her side.

"Connor, you need to come with us, right now," Matt said, ignoring her question entirely.

"What's happening?" he asked warily. Connor was getting that feeling again, the feeling that they were keeping something from him, and from the cautious looks the rest of the team were giving the Hunters, he wasn't the only one. He wanted to step backwards towards his friends.

"It's important that you come with us right now," Matt reiterated a little more urgently. He reached out to grasp Connor's arm tightly, trying to pull him forward.

New instinct screamed protest at the unwanted contact; he yanked his arm out of Matt's grip with enough force to break the Hunter's abnormally strong hold, backing up a step. "Not until you tell me what's going on," he snapped back.

"What are you talking about, Anderson?" Cutter asked in a frosty tone, stepping forward and edging to one side. He put himself between Matt and Connor, the movement obviously protective. Even though Matt could probably take him apart like a tinker toy, he still stood between the stranger and the student, and beside him, Stephen set down his pint and stood up straighter, flexing his fists. "Connor's not going anywhere until you start talking. What's happening?"

"Professor Cutter, move," Emily ordered sharply.

Jenny took a step closer to the other woman, lifting her chin defiantly. "Nick might not hit a woman, but I for damn sure will. Back off him and tell us what's going on here?" she challenged.

Emily stared at the taller woman for a moment, then glanced to Matt for guidance; he was staring at the team as well as if debating something. Finally, he took a deep breath and replied, "Not here. Somewhere private."

"Nice try," Stephen answered. He didn't underestimate these Hunters, not even a little bit, and he had suspicions that if they were alone, then something very bad was going to end up happening to their geek. But in here they were safe, protected by the fact that there were a dozen other people in the pub as well, a dozen witnesses. "Start talking now."

Matt glared at him for a moment, clearly irritated, but there was also a faint glimmer of respect in his eyes. So the tracker wasn't as dull as he first seemed to be. "Very well. Connor's been infected with both strains," he said bluntly, deciding to cut straight to the heart of the matter. Beating around the bush had never been his forte, to be honest.

The young man blanched, going even paler than usual, and he took a physical step backwards; Abby went with him, still holding him 'round the waist with one arm. "I-I thought you said – "

"I know," Matt replied. "I know. But your blood results say that you have them both. I haven't the foggiest idea how in the hell you've made it this far, but the fact still remains that there's something wrong. We have to get you out of here soon before…" He trailed off there, but Connor already knew what he would've said next.

"Before what?" Cutter demanded. He didn't know as much about the Adonai as Connor did, but from the looks on their faces, he figured that it wasn't something good. He knew about the different strands of whatever infection this was, but he didn't understand the implication of having both.

Connor answered before the Irishman could. "Before I go mad," he said quietly. "That's what a double-strand infection does. It'll send me mad and then it'll kill me."

"Connor," Abby gasped.

"Bloody hell, you didn't think to warn us about this beforehand?" Stephen demanded of Matt furiously.

"I didn't know. Nobody has ever gone this long without showing the signs," Matt snapped back just as angrily, frustrated by this conundrum that stood before him. He didn't understand how it was possible, and that probably frustrated him more than anything else. By all rights, Connor should've been dead weeks ago, yet he stood there perfectly sane and healthy. "If we'd suspected there was danger, we'd have removed him."

"'Removed him'?" Cutter repeated dubiously, eyes narrowed. "Killed him, you mean. You'd have killed him, wouldn't you have?"

The other man shifted his crystalline blue gaze to the professor. "If it meant saving the lives of other people, yes," he replied in a cold, level voice. "And until you have seen what becomes of those driven mad by infection, you have no right to say anything of it."

Connor spoke up then, his voice soft and remarkably calm in contrast to the heated tones of everyone else. "Matt, you said that you can only identify the strains in my bloodwork after I've completely overcome the infection, right?" he asked quietly, and the Hunter nodded. "That's how you know I have both strains. You saw it in my blood. Then that means I'm over the infection. I'm like you lot now, and I haven't gone crackers yet. Doesn't that mean I'm probably not going to? I mean, if I were going to go loopy, you'd think I'd have gotten on with it already," he suggested.

The Irishman stared back at him for a long moment, expression unreadable, but then he shook his head slowly. "I have no idea what this is, Connor. Nobody has ever made it past the first stages of infection with both strands. Never, not once in all of our records, has it ever been even suggested that it could even be physically possible. By all rights, you ought to be dead already," he admitted, then paused. "But I suppose that you have a point. But you understand that I can't just let you walk away from this. This is…huge. There's things that have to be done now, beyond our control. You are a living contradiction to everything we've ever learnt about the Adonai strain. You understand that?"

"I do," Connor agreed. "But I'm still here and I'm not feeling particularly homicidal, so let's everybody just ease off some, yeah?"

"You'll have to come back to the ARC," Matt reminded.

The young man nodded agreement. He'd seen that one coming.

"You've got to be fucking joking," Ethan snarled out abruptly. He was looking between Connor and Matt with an expression of disgusted fury on his face. "You're really just going to let him walk out of here? I say we end it here and now. It's plenty isolated in the alley out back, and he's a small thing. It wouldn't take too long to bleed him – "

"Don't you dare touch him!" Abby spat.

The dark-haired Hunter flicked his dark gaze to her, lip curling in obvious revulsion. "Nobody was talking to you, slut," he answered.

_Crinch!_

The abrupt sound nearly startled them all out of their skins. It was as loud as a rifle report, but high and crystalline – drawn out, too, somewhere between a crash and a crunch, like glass splintering beneath heavy boots, and several patrons of the pub let out gasps and short screams of surprised fear. The mirrors behind the bar had been broken – actually, they weren't broken. They had cracked. But none of them cracked like they'd been hit with something, a spiderweb of lines spreading out from a point of impact. Instead, each one had cracked evenly, the entire surface, from top to bottom, from side to side, every inch of the mirrors covered in a latticework of fine lines. It almost looked purposeful, like a frosted-glass design. Every single mirror had been cracked the same way, and so had all the windows in the front of the pub, even those in the door.

Connor's eyes hadn't strayed from Ethan the entire time, full of black rage. "Call her something like that again," he dared in a deceptively soft voice laden with warning.

"Easy now," Matt soothed in a wary tone, glancing between the two men, sensing the silent battle of wills. He knew that Connor had undoubtedly caused the mirrors and windows to crack like that, a reflexive flare of power in response to his own flare of anger. It spoke to very dangerous things that the young man could manage such a thing so soon after overcoming infection; it had taken Matt three months before he could do so much as close a door with his powers after infection. "Let's go back to the ARC. We'll sort it out there."

"For once, I'm inclined to agree," Cutter said quietly, still gazing at the cracked mirrors with an unreadable expression on his face. "Let's go."


	12. Scion

"Alright, now, let's everybody sit down. We'll talk about this like adults. Which means if I hear one derogatory word come out of anyone's mouth, I will personally throw that person headfirst out of the door," said Matt in a cold, dangerous tone, looking directly towards Ethan. He didn't know what was happening to Connor, but if the display of power at the pub was anything to go by, this kid definitely wasn't someone to be messed with. Even now, Connor was sitting down in a chair, and Abby stood next to him, her hands resting on his shoulders, his own grasping her wrists. The dark-haired Hunter scowled but held his tongue. Pulling out a chair across the table, Matt sat down. "Now, Connor. You said there's something you wanted to tell us."

The young man nodded. "When I was sick, I had some…weird dreams," he began.

Matt lifted an eyebrow. "Weird? Did you at any point see a figure in those dreams? One made of darkness or light?" he queried. Nearly everyone had bizarre hallucinatory dreams during infection. When he'd been infected, he'd dreamt of being dead, and a dark figure made of shadow had appeared to cut him into pieces and remake him into something else.

Connor nodded. "Yeah, both of them. One was the dark, the other was the light. I saw them both," he replied. "I can remember it all. They were there. They…took me apart, turned all my pieces into something else, then put me back together. They said that I was something called a scion." He paused and took a deep breath, remembering his eerie dreams, the bone-chilling sensation of being cut apart by the darkness and the light, having all his pieces pulled apart and put back together again like he was some giant human puzzle. He looked back up at Matt. "I dunno how it is. I really don't. But then again, you're the expert. Maybe you can tell me."

Matt leant back in his chair with a heavy sigh, reeling on the inside still. It didn't seem possible. He kept staring at the young man, trying to understand how this boy could still be standing when by all rights he should have died weeks ago. This was mad. He hated feeling uncertain like this. It made him…uncomfortable, as though he was standing upon a trapdoor, and at any moment, it could fall out from under his feet and send him spiraling into darkness. "I have no idea what's happening to you, Connor. I don't. I'll need to talk to our handler – "

"Handler?" Abby echoed.

"Yes. Every Hunter team is managed by a specially trained handler; it's the handler's job to get us any paperwork we need to survive in whatever time period we enter. They find us our tasks and give us our assignments," he replied. "Normally, that's all they do for us, and everything else is left up to us, but…this isn't exactly normal."

"So will this handler be able to tell us what's happening to Connor?" Abby said, grasping the young man by the shoulders.

"Maybe. I'm not sure that anybody's ever seen anything like this before," the Irishman answered, still looking over the young man closely. It was invisible to everyone but an Adonai, but Connor's features had shifted ever-so-slightly, become a little different. The change was new, so it'd take some time before it became truly noticeable, like how Matt's eyes changed to their crystalline colour, but Connor would start showing some outward changes, some way of the Adonai strain finding its way to show itself physically. "We'll talk to him anyways, find out where in the hell to go from here. Now, Connor, you are going to stay in the ARC. Danny and Ethan are going to stay here with you in case…." Matt cut himself off.

"In case I lose it. You can say it, Matt. I know," Connor said quietly; his eyes seemed very old just then, as if he'd lived far too long in his twenty-four years.

"I'm sorry, Connor," he murmured.

Abby tightened her hands on Connor shoulders, her grip protective and possessive at the same time. "I'm staying with you," she said.

"No, Abby. You're not. You're going home to the flat," Connor answered firmly, turning in the chair to look up at her. "If there's something not right with me, then I could hurt you. And if I hurt you, then I'm not going to ever forgive myself. You're going home." He felt ill even considering that he might hurt Abby, if there really was something wrong with him. He knew that he wouldn't be able to handle it if he hurt her, injured her in any way, so much as a stubbed toe. He wouldn't have her anywhere near him until they knew that there was nothing wrong with him.

She looked down at him with sorrowful blue eyes for a moment, but then she nodded acquiescence, leant down, and kissed his cheek gently. "Alright, Conn. I'll see you in the morning," she said softly, then walked out of the room.

Once the door latched, Connor turned his attention back to Matt. "So how long will I need to stay here?" he queried.

The Irishman leant forward in the chair, lacing his hands together on the tabletop, and he let out a deep breath. "I'm not sure. Emily and I will go and talk to our handler, see if we can't figure something out, and we'll find a plan of action then," he answered, then looked back up at the young man across the table from him. His eerily feline, crystalline eyes shone with a surprising amount of sincerity, odd since he hid his emotions so well and so often. "We _will_ do everything that we can to make this better, Connor. You know this, right?"

Connor leant forward as well, elbows on the tabletop as he met Matt's eye directly. He might not know how to use any super-psychic magical Adonai powers yet, but he liked to think that he could read people fairly well. He'd known right off the bat when they first met that Stephen was one of those smooth-talking, confident blokes and that Cutter was bullheaded and brilliant. And he could see that Matt was telling him the truth. The older man was the sort who protected his own, valued life, and wasn't one to just let a person die without putting forth effort to save them. In a lot of ways, Matt was rather like Professor Cutter. "I know," he replied softly. "If there _is_ something wrong with me, and if I end up losing it…"

Matt understood what he was trying to say and answered in a level voice, "I will end it as quickly and as painlessly as I possibly can. But, Connor…you'll be okay."

The dark-haired lad looked back up at him, and again, for a moment, his eyes seemed older than the rest of him, shining with a wisdom that spoke well beyond his years. "We hope."

* * *

Langley was, in a word, intimidating. Matt didn't scare very easily—he hardly scared at all, truly—but this man frightened him on a level he couldn't quite manage to explain. He was human, very much so, yet held all the authority and power of any high-ranking Adonai. He was built small but strong, with a coarse shock of dark hair always perfectly styled, not a hair daring to step out of place, with cool, flint-grey eyes that never missed a thing, and wore a suit with creases pressed so sharp they could probably cut cheese. In a lot of ways, Langley reminded him of Lester; perhaps they were distantly related. The man had an uncanny ability to appear out of nowhere whenever he was needed, and now was no exception. As soon as Emily and Matt stepped outside the ARC, a black car with dark-tinted windows pulled up, the door opening for them silently, and they got in without question.

"So…" Langley said quietly, hands folded neatly over the silver-wrought handle of the cane he always carried with him, even though none of them had ever seen a hint of a limp of any sort. "This…boy you told me of…is it true?"

"Yes, sir," Matt replied. "We've run a half-dozen tests already to ensure there was no mistake. Temple has somehow managed to become infected with both strains of the Adonai virus without any of the fatal side-effects. His infection went through without trouble, and he survived the symptoms." He took care not to use Connor's first name, as it could be taken as a sign that he was becoming attached. Reaching into his coat pocket, he took out the results of the various tests they'd run on Connor's blood, all of them showing the same answer—Charbydion and Elysian existing together within his DNA—and handed them to Langley.

"We know it can't be a fluke, either, because he's already shown an outward display of power," added Emily from her seat beside Matt, both of them sitting across from the suited man. "What we don't know is where to go from here."

Langley was silent for several long seconds, which could only mean that he was thinking very hard very quickly; from what little they knew of him, he was supposedly a genius, with an IQ that could hardly be measured. His brain had to be racing, weighing the pros and cons, exploring every strand of possibility within his imagination. "Very well," he said at last. "This boy, Temple, he could be quite the valuable commodity. An enormous step forward in our understanding of the Adonai strain. If this can be made sense of, then perhaps it can be duplicated under our supervision." He lightly tapped his fingertips against the cane handle, grey eyes icy and full of almost-predatory calculation. Matt knew in an instant that Langley didn't care about Connor in the least, that the young man was merely a lab rat to him, a potential advantage. He was a piece of meat with interesting DNA coding. "You and Merchant are to begin his training as you would for any other infection survivor. Anderson will teach him Charbydion, and Merchant will teach him Elysian. Find out his potential, see what he can do. Test him. Regular updates will be made directly to me, and if I believe he's worth the effort, Temple will be removed to the Compound for further training."

This was the point where Matt and Emily both nodded and said 'yes, sir' but neither did. Matt frowned. "Sir, if I may speak freely?" he asked; Langley twitched his fingers by way of permission. "Temple is very attached to the ARC and the people working in it. He views them as his home and his family. He will defend them with his own life, I feel. I don't believe he will simply walk away from it all simply because we ask him to."

Langley's eyes narrowed dangerously, and again, Matt felt that little wriggle of fear in the pit of his stomach, the feeling that he was sitting across from something infinitely more dangerous than any Predator. "And who ever said that we would be _asking_ him?" he asked in a silky voice. "If Temple turns out to be as advantageous as he seems to be, then he _will_ come to the Compound, dragged in by his hair if needs be, bound and gagged. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," they both murmured softly.

"Very good. Let Merchant out here. I have words to speak with Anderson in private," Langley said, and the car rolled to a smooth stop at the kerb. The door whispered open, and Emily cast Matt a worried glance before sliding out of the car, shutting the door behind her.

As the car drove away, Emily pushed both hands into her pockets and watched the taillights fade away into the darkness. She didn't know what Langley had planned for Connor, but she had a sickly feeling that it definitely wouldn't be good, not for the boy. _Dragged in by his hair if needs be, bound and gagged,_ Langley had said. She wasn't sure that she would be able to do that; despite all her deeply-ingrained training, Connor had appealed himself to her, had wormed himself through her defences to become the closest thing she had to a new friend in many years. She didn't know what Langley was telling Matt, what was so important that she couldn't even be present for it, but an uncomfortable knot in her stomach spoke to bad things ahead. _Something wicked this way comes,_ she thought to herself.

The first droplets of rain began to fall.


	13. Training

"So…you're really gonna do this, boy?" Cutter asked, standing with both arms folded tight across his chest. It was obvious that he wasn't exactly pleased with the news, judging by the scowl on his face and the tension in his shoulders.

Connor sat in a chair in front of the professor's desk, looking oddly like a schoolboy being called into the headmaster's office with his scuffed shoes, too-big jacket, and puppy dog expression. Matt and Emily had come back last night after seeing their mysterious handler and said that orders were to train him as they would any survivor. She would teach him to use Elysian power, and Matt would teach him to use the Charbydion. Simple as that. "Yeah," he answered, lacing his hands together in his lap. "I kinda have to, Cutter. Remember what happened in the pub? _I_ did that without meaning to, just 'cause I got a bit miffed at someone, and that's just the little stuff. What d'you think would happen if I got really mad?" he asked, looking up at his professor. "They've got to at least teach me how to control this stuff so I don't hurt someone. C'mon, it won't be that bad."

"Except that you're not going to be going out on alerts anymore," Stephen muttered under his breath, a decidedly sullen air about him.

"Yeah, I will," Connor protested. "I just…might not be out as often. Don't worry about it, though. I'll handle it."

Cutter's eyebrows rose, his expression clearly saying he didn't believe a word of that, and Connor slid down a bit in his chair like a scolded child told off by his teacher. "Alright," he said at last, making the boy look up at him in surprise. "Just because I'd rather not have you break any windows with us nearby. Now go on."

"Seriously?" Connor asked in disbelief.

The professor nodded. "Yes, seriously, now go before I come to my senses and change my mind," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

Much to his surprise, Connor actually jumped up and hugged him tightly. "Thanks, Professor!" he yammered, his words running together in their haste to get out so none of them could really understand what else he said beyond the occasional excited snatch of words. He hastened out of the office, almost tripping on his own feet on the way out.

Cutter groaned and scrubbed one hand over his face. "God help me," he sighed heavily. Somehow, he had a rather nagging feeling that this was going to come back around and bite him later on.

* * *

"D'you mind if I ask why exactly we had to come all the way out here?" Connor asked as they made their way through the undergrowth, stepping around trees and shrubs and ferns. His allergies, amazingly enough, weren't acting up, something he was grateful for; he doubted it'd make a good impression on his magic teacher if he couldn't see straight for sneezing and got a runny nose from pollen.

"Yes," Emily replied.

"Why did we have to come all the way out here?"

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. She had taught more than one Elysian trainee, but none like him. She had a feeling that there would never be a trainee like him; she also had a feeling that this wasn't the first time such a term had been applied to him. "One of the largest parts of Elysian power is the manipulation of elements by the four cornerstones – earth, air, water, and fire. All of us can manipulate the four basics, and any others are a precise ratio of the four combined."

"I think Matt touched on this. Lightning is air and fire, metal is earth and…"

"Fire," she finished for him with a nod, grateful that Matt had at least said something of it to him. "You're right, but it's more than that. It takes precision, practice, and getting it wrong will have disastrous results."

"Like chemistry?" he queried.

Emily gave a nod. "Quite. See, you call it magic. We call it science."

"Okay. Still doesn't explain why we're out here."

She gave a sigh and shook her head. Yes, this young man was going to be quite the _interesting_ student. "Training begins with finding which of the cornerstone elements you are closest to and building from there. To do that, it's best to start off in a place of nature, away from manmade influences," she explained, then came to a stop beside a small brook winding its way through the trees. They stood in the midst of a small clearing now, hedged in by tall trees and graceful ferns. "Here will work. Come here, let me see your hands," she said brusquely, holding both hands palm-up in front of her; obediently, Connor stepped forward and laid his hands over hers, palms touching, and her slim fingers curled strong around his. "I will help you bring your power forward, but you must learn to do it by yourself."

"Yes, ma'am, Professor McGonagall," he answered. Emily lifted her eyebrows, stoic mask slipping for a moment as she looked at him in confusion. Connor flushed. "It's – it's a film about magic an'…never mind, forget I said anything," he stammered quickly. In his mind, though, he kept thinking, _where the hell are they from that they've never heard of Harry Potter?_

She took a breath to steady herself, reaching for that cool, calm place within her, and she extended small, tentative feelers of power out towards him, passing through the contact of their hands. She felt him shiver slightly at the contact, even though it wasn't physical. His power wasn't hard to find. He was a wellspring of untapped energy, a flare of brilliance in a dull void. If her own power was a candle, then he may well be a bonfire. She recognised the familiar luminescence of Elysian energy, warm and bright, reminding her always of sunlight on a warm summer's day, but she also felt the cooler, darker brush of Charbydion power that wasn't so familiar to her. _It really is true. He is both,_ she thought in silent awe. A part of her had still been doubtful, but now whatever reservations she might've had were quashed at the feel of the two energies, the light and the darkness, swirling peacefully around inside him. Pushing the disbelief aside, she gently began coaxing the Elysian half forward, using her own power to guide it forward. She heard him mutter out a surprised curse at the feel of power rising within him.

When it reached the surface, the effect was instantaneous. When Elysian power was drawn forth and let out with no focus point, without it being channeled and concentrated to a purpose, it would have an impact on the general vicinity instead, showing greatest effect on the element the Elysian was closest to. At their feet, the weak winter grass just beginning to show spring growth sprouted into a thick carpet of lush green. The wildflowers erupted in colourful bloom, and the ferns unfurled broad new fronds, and the shrubs opened new leaves. Connor let out a startled yelp. "Was – was that you?" he gasped.

"No, that was _you,"_ Emily replied. "This means you have an affinity for the earth element. Unusual, but that seems to be somewhat of a theme for you."

"Okay...that was _so...awesome,"_ Connor gasped, practically bouncing on his toes with excitement.

"Focus, Connor, our lesson is not over yet," she said brusquely, and as he settled once more, still talking at speed, she sent up a silent prayer to whichever deity that was listening, praying for the patience to not kill her new student before he even had the chance to learn anything.

* * *

Connor flopped face-down onto the couch with a heavy, exhausted groan, burying his head in the cushions. He wasn't sure that he'd ever been so _tired_ in all his life, not even when he was sick and felt like something run over by a lorry. Emily was in no way a laid-back teacher, and using this magic energy, whatever the hell, was so _not_ as easy as it looked. It wasn't just physical exhaustion, though, it was mental. His brain felt too tired to think beyond three-word sentences, as if he'd just sat down and tried to take a dozen final exams straight through without a rest. But even so, his body still managed to feel sluggish and heavy.

"Connor? Are you home?" Abby called from the other room, then came walking out of the bathroom, fresh from the shower, toweling off her hair. When she spotted him lying on the couch, she walked over and crouched on her heels next to him, rubbing circles on his back with one hand. "Are you tired, then?" she asked, and he gave a muffled groan without lifting his head from the cushions. "Right. Are you hungry? I was thinking of ordering in for dinner." He gave a nod, still not lifting his head. "Alright. How does Thai sound? We had curry yesterday," she suggested, and he gave a muffled, mumbling reply. "Okay, Chinese it is."

They spent most of their dinner discussing Connor's first real magic lesson, talking about everything that Emily had told him so far, but halfway through the meal, he was yawning between bites and his lashes were getting heavy. "Tell you what, Abs, this stuff really takes it out of you," he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes with one gloved hand as they put the leftovers in the fridge and stacked the dishes in the sink for the washing up tomorrow, which he was going to have to do. "I'm gonna go to bed early. I can't see straight anymore. G'night. Sorry I'm missin' movie night, but I'd just end up fallin' asleep and snorin' through the whole thing."

"Alright, good night, Conn. Go rest up for your magic lessons tomorrow," she answered, ruffling his dark hair as she passed him.

* * *

When Connor woke up, he was sore and aching all over the place, he was also freezing cold and also soaked. And he was so definitely _not_ at home in his loft. His head was pounding something fierce, as though someone had cracked him upside the head with a steel bar, a steady, throbbing pain that resonated with every other heartbeat. He wasn't sure that he could even open his eyes without crying for the pain, so he instead took rapid stock with his other senses, using his new Adonai super-senses to reach out.

Wherever he was, the air smelt of wet asphalt, damp soil, and something else vaguely plant-ish; he could hear cars nearby, louder than he would've heard them so he was probably outside, along with a steady, monotonous dripping close by as well. He tasted blood in his mouth, thick and coppery. He was lying on something hard, uneven, and cold, a chill seeping through his clothes into his side. His hair was wet and stuck against his cheeks and forehead, his back felt like something made of torn-up iron, and his hands burned and stung at the same time, an unpleasant juxtaposition of sensation. Finally, he pulled open his eyes slowly.

He was lying on the ground…in the park? He had his back to a tree and was screened in by bushes, but he could see the street from where he lay. His gaze rolled down to himself. _Oh, my God…_. He was wearing his own clothes, but they were soaked. With blood. There was no mistaking the dark, tacky stains for anything but. His hands were scraped all to hell, his knuckles swollen, dirt and blood under his nails. Connor placed both hands on the ground and pushed himself up slowly, trying not to either pass out or vomit. Gripping the rough tree bark for support, he stood up shakily, vision swimming in sickening ways, stomach roiling. As he looked around slowly, he realised that he knew where he was—St. James Park.

_Home. You've got to go home,_ his mind whispered to him. _Go home, and you'll be safe. Go home._

Home. He had to get back to the flat. To his home. To Abby.

Trying not to pass out or throw up, he started out of the park, the only destination in mind being home.


	14. Promise

**A/N: two chapters in one day, I'm on fire! Anyways, happy Easter, spring break, April Fool's Day, whatever else, and enjoy!**

* * *

The door of his temporary office whispered open, and he knew without even looking up that it was Emily. They never used anything like cologne or perfume or scented soaps because it offended their sensitive noses, but the natural musky scent of her skin and hair couldn't be eliminated so easily. "Matt," she said quietly, coming near to stand beside the desk; they always spoke quietly when alone, their hearing sensitive enough to hear each other. "Why have you not told him?"

He let out a heavy breath, set down his pen, and turned around to look up at her. He knew exactly what she was talking about and should've known that it was coming. No matter the situation, he could count on her, his second-in-command, to keep him grounded; if she thought he was in the wrong, she wouldn't hesitate to tell him so. And judging by her expression, she definitely thought that he was in the wrong. "I have my reasons," he answered at last.

Emily narrowed her eyes at him, obviously dissatisfied with the dismal answer that he'd given, and he knew that this conversation was far from over. She pulled out a chair next to the desk and sat down beside him. "And what would those reasons be, pray tell?" she asked in a cool voice.

Knowing that she would not give him rest until he had come clean, Matt met her eye directly. "I'm not sure that he can take it, Emily," he answered truthfully. "Everything that's happened…it is a lot for anybody to take in, especially for someone not born into it as we were. Connor is take it all very well, all things considered, but…if I put too much on him at once, I feel he'll lose it." He shook his head slowly, trying to make her understand this. Connor was handling it better than most, amazingly better, but even someone with a learning curve steep as his had a limit, had a breaking point. "And this…this will be harder for him than anything else. I will tell him, but…give it some time, let him have the chance to settle first."

She stared at him thoroughly for several long seconds, dark eyes searching. She saw his point, though, not wanting to overwhelm the boy with everything all at once, yet she had a feeling that he was still trying to keep something from her. Emily could see no deception in his aura, but that meant very little – Hunters were trained to mask their auras from each other. Still, the feeling persisted. "Very well," she agreed at last, deciding to set aside that feeling for the time being. "But Matt…if you do not tell him, then I will." Pushing back from the desk, she stood up and walked out of the office, leaving Matt sitting by himself.

* * *

Connor wasn't sure how he'd even made it home, but by the time he did, he was ready to fall over in exhaustion. No cab would stop for him because he probably looked like an axe murderer, covered in blood and dirt, and he wouldn't risk taking the Tube for the same reason. So he'd legged it, trying to avoid being seen by anybody, occasionally having to stop and breathe when the nausea threatened to make his dinner reappear. But he'd made it. He fumbled open the lock, trying to keep quiet – he still had his keys and wallet, so he figured that he wasn't mugged – and tripped his way up the stairs like a drunk, praying that Abby wouldn't wake up. Rex fluttered down to greet him, chirping. "Shush, mate, shush, or you'll wake up your mum," he whispered hoarsely, shooing Rex away; the Coelurosauravus fluttered away, looking put out. If lizards could look put out.

The light suddenly flicked on, and he leapt halfway out of his skin, blinking rapidly at the sudden onslaught of illumination. Abby stood there with one hand on the switch, staring at him with confusion on her face. "Connor? What are you doing awake? It's the middle of the night…." Her gaze wandered over him properly for the first time, and the confusion transformed to worried concern. "Conn, what happened? Who did this?" she gasped, walking closer to him.

He was still trembling, and she could see and feel it when she took hold of both his hands in hers, taking in the swollen, scraped knuckles, the dirt on his palms and the dried blood on his fingers. "I-I dunno," he answered hoarsely. "I went to bed in me bed, and when I woke up, I was in the _park_, and I've no clue how I got there." He took a trembling breath, fear coiling tight in his belly; she looked at his pale, scared face, blue gaze soft and concerned. "I-I think m'goin mad, Abby," he whispered in a small voice. "I keep wakin' up in other places like _this – "_ He gestured to his torn, dirtied clothes, hands scraped all to hell, blood still wet in his hair. " – an' I got no idea what happened to me." He looked at her with tearful eyes. "Have I gone 'round the bend?"

Abby cupped his cheeks and drew his head down to kiss his cool forehead, feeling him lean into her, and she hugged his head against her shoulder. "Yeah. You're completely crackers. Totally off your rocker," she confirmed, then pressed another gentle kiss atop his head, ignoring the faint taste of blood. "But I'll tell you what – all the best people are," she added, and felt him laugh softly. "C'mon, I'll run you a bath. If you keep your shorts on, I'll wash your hair for you. Sound good to you?"

He nodded weakly, eyes still closed.

She patted his back gently. "Good. Go grab some clothes, I'll run the bath." As he headed up the stairs into the loft, she walked into the bathroom. Perching herself on the edge of the tub, she ran the water, occasionally checking the temperature with one hand; she also poured some of her bath salts into the water, knowing that his battered body probably needed it. When it was near full, she turned off the tap. "Ready, Connor," she called.

He stood behind her, standing almost entirely still with arms crossed across his chest, hands tucked beneath his arms. He shuffled a little, then nodded, beginning to take off the torn, dirtied clothes he'd come home in, even though he didn't remember getting dressed at all. First to come off was his red hoodie, which had bloodstains and tears in the sleeves and on the front, then his waistcoat, also torn with spots of blood on it. Then he started to pull off his t-shirt and whimpered. "Might need a hand," he whispered in a tiny voice. She turned to look; his shirt was halfway up but he was unable to get it the rest of the way off. The forming bluish-black bruises across his back and shoulders were enough explanation. Stepping forward, she slid her fingers into the collar, pulled it over his head, and slid it back down his arms, peeling it away. "Ta," he mumbled quietly, not quite able to meet her eye; this was not exactly how he imagined his first time undressing in front of a woman. She nodded, turning away as he took off his boots, socks, and gloves, then his trousers. Still in his boxers, he stepped into the tub and slowly lowered himself down into the hot water, gripping the sides for balance, until he was seated, the water lapping around him.

Abby used one foot to push his clothes out of the bathroom, making a mental note to throw them out later; she perched on the edge of the tub, detached the showerhead, and turned on the water, carefully letting the water soak his tangled hair. Taking the bottle of conditioner, she squirted a generous amount onto her hand and began to massage it into his rats' nest of hair, working up a lather. She left the conditioner to work on his tangles, picked up a clean washcloth, dipped it into the water, and then lifted it to his back. He went rigid when she first touched his skin, but then the tension melted out of him, relaxing. She ran the cloth along the back of his neck, careful not to accidentally apply pressure to the bruises. A swath of pale skin was revealed beneath the layer of grime. She leaned forward, putting her lips near his ear. "Uh-oh. I've made a clean spot here. Guess I'll have to do it all now," she said quietly; the corner of his mouth curled up in a smile.

She sat back and began to clean off his back, very gently dragging the cloth down his back, wiping off the dirt and grime. She bit her lip, seeing shiny traces of scar tissue, bruises, and scratches in varying stages of healing appear beneath the layer of dirt. Something in her heart ached with pathos, seeing the scars on his back, his shoulders, some of them well faded and years old. He hissed softly as she accidentally pressed too hard on one bruise, and she kissed the back of his shoulder. "Sorry," she murmured. He made a soft sound, closed his eyes, and dropped his head forward, arms hooked loosely around his knees. The trust in the motion made her heart twist. The water turned cloudy with dirt as she rinsed off the cloth, cupped water in her hands, and poured it over his back, sloughing off the rest of the dirt. She wondered what in the world he'd done, if he'd gotten in a fight when he was sleepwalking or something.

Moving around the edge of the tub, she took his wrist and swept the washcloth over his bicep, the layer of grime on his skin giving way to her determination. She tilted her head slightly to look at him. Connor had his eyes closed, head hanging low between his shoulders; he looked like he'd fallen asleep sitting up. A slow trickle of soap suds ran down his forehead, and she used her thumb to gently wipe it away. He grunted softly, leaning into her touch. Abby moved from his left arm to his right. When she was done, she moved around to sit behind him. "Head back," she murmured.

Eyes still closed, he tipped his head backwards, face tilted up. The shadows beneath his eyes looked darker than before, but his expression was one of relaxation, near-bliss. Taking the showerhead again, she turned on the water and began to rinse the conditioner from his hair. Holding the showerhead in one hand, she directed the flow and cupped her other hand over his forehead, keeping the conditioner from running into his eyes. The sudsy water ran down his back grimy red at first, then in clear pink, then at last clean. She used her free hand to comb through his wet hair, pulling out bits of twigs and leaves and…Christ, was this broken glass? She pulled out small shards of broken glass, tossing them into the wastebin. Maybe that was the reason for all the blood in his hair. She just hoped that he didn't have a concussion or anything; when she'd finished cleaning out the debris, she ran the water over his hair once more; his hair flattened, seal-like, against his skull. Turning off the tap, she slid her fingers into his hair and began to run them through the tangles, taking care not to pull or tug, pulling out the knots, easing through the snarls slowly. He sighed almost inaudibly, leaning back into her touch, eyes closed.

"All done," she said, her voice low and husky. She almost hated to speak and end it, but the water was getting cold, and she wanted to get him to sleep soon. Connor yawned widely and nodded slowly. She stood up and went in the cupboard for her fluffiest towel. He pulled the plug and started to get up, gripping the sides of the tub, but he faltered, an abrupt wave of exhaustion hitting him hard, swamping him with fatigue. Abby took his arm, supporting his weight as he climbed out of the bath. Most men would have shaken her off as if being helped by a woman was too emasculating, but Connor accepted her help gratefully as she wrapped the towel around his shoulders and rubbed the moisture off his shoulders and hair. "That better?" she asked, using the edge of the towel to gently wipe water droplets off his face; he scrunched up his face in reaction to the touch of cloth like a little kid would.

"Mmm…mm-hm," he answered softly; he didn't even sound conscious.

She gently scrubbed the towel across his hair, making it stand up in all directions. "C'mon, let's get you to bed. You need sleep," she said, but he went tense in her arms, leaning away.

"N-no," he murmured, shaking his head vigorously. "No. I can't go to sleep, I _can't."_

"Why not?" Abby asked.

He bit his lip, hesitant to answer her because he hated how childish it sounded. "I'm scared," he admitted. "I'm afraid that if I go to sleep, I'm going to wake up somewhere else again, and I won't know what I did or how to get home."

Her heart tore at how desolate he sounded. Despite the fact that he had unshaven scruff on his jaw and stood almost a head taller than her, he sounded so much like a lost little boy that she wanted to hold him tight and never let go. She reached up and pressed her hand to his cheek. "Then you come in my bed with me. And when you wake up, I'll be there instead," she replied.

When Connor spoke again, his voice was thick. "Promise?"

She slid her hand to the back of his neck and drew his head down, rising on her toes. Their foreheads rested against one another, noses touching. "Promise."


	15. Treachery

**A/N: three chapters in one day. That's gotta be a record or something. Somebody call the Guinness Book people! Anyways...do enjoy and review.**

* * *

When Abby woke up in the morning, Connor wasn't lying in the bed beside her, and the sheets were cool. He'd lain besides her all night, sometimes twitching as if in the grip of a nightmare, and she'd curled up beside him, gentle about his bruises, and coddled him until he relaxed again. She pushed back the sheets and got up, stepping out of her room. "Conn? Where'd you go?" she called.

"'M in here, Abs," he called back, and she followed his voice to the bathroom. He was already fully dressed in his usual layered ensemble, though now she noticed that he was dressed in a way that hid his bruises without appearing too warm for the weather. He was wrapping his scraped hands in gauze and bandages with a rather peculiar…and unnerving…precision, as if he'd done plenty of taping up his own scrapes before. She frowned at that, at the idea tht he had self-treated himself enough to be adept at it. Once he'd finished binding up both hands, he slid on his gloves over the bandages. And just like that, he looked fine, as if he wasn't bruised six ways to Sunday underneath the colourful, clashing layers. He glanced at her in the mirror, saw her watching him. "Abby…don't tell anybody."

_"What?"_ she gasped out, her eyes snapping up to his face. "Connor, I have to – "

"Abby, please," he said, turning to look at her. He took a step closer and placed both hands on her shoulders, his grip surprisingly strong. She had to tilt her head up to look up at him, surprised that she'd never realised just how much taller he was than her before. "Look, you an' me, we're friends, yeah?"

"Of course, Conn. You're my best friend," she answered.

"Okay. I've never asked anything from you before, but, Abby, I'm asking you now, as my friend, not to tell anybody else about this," he said urgently, giving her a little shake for emphasis. "You've…just…give me time to figure this out, okay? Give me time. Alright? Abs?"

She let out a heavy sigh. Damn it, he was giving her that puppy-dog look again. She _hated_ it, and loved it at the same time, when he looked at her like that, because it didn't seem fair that anybody could look _that_ adorable, and it always made her feel like melting into her shoes when he did that. He was too damn cute for his own good sometimes. She wondered if he knew that and did it on purpose. "Alright, Conn. I won't tell anybody," she relented and was rewarded with that brilliant, crooked, one-dimple grin that always made her stomach flip. Yeah, _way_ too cute for his own good.

"Thanks, Abby, you're a love," he said, then, to her surprise, he pulled her in and planted a brief kiss on her forehead before pulling away. Before she could say anything about it, his mobile started ringing, and so did hers from the next room. He quickly pulled out his mobile and answered it. "Hello? Yeah, Professor, Abby's here with me. Sure, we'll be there. Okay. G'bye." He snapped the mobile closed and tucked it back in his pocket, smiling at her once more, like there was nothing wrong with him and he wasn't bruised to hell under his clothes and probably sore in all sorts of ways. "We've got another anomaly. C'mon."

* * *

"How did your lessons go with Emily?" Matt asked as his errant trainee came into the room. The team had been out several hours for an anomaly alert, and the moment they'd returned, Connor had come up to Matt's temporary office without even being told. He asked for two reasons – firstly because he had to make his report to Langley, and secondly because he'd always been curious about Elysian magic. He knew _of_ it, but he would never claim to understand it. He imagined that Emily and Danny were quite the same when it came to Charbydion power. Knowing and understanding were two very different things.

"Awesome," Connor replied as he bounded up and dropped into a chair. He practically hummed with energy, eyes bright. "Apparently, according to her, I have some kind of superpower with earth magic. It was really cool. I mean, making plants grow doesn't sound awesome, but man, it's so different when you're actually the one doing it an' – "

Matt held up one hand. "Slow down, now, slow down," he said before the lad could hurt himself, and Connor visibly restrained himself, biting his lips together. "Thank you. How have you been feeling? Anything different? Headaches, nausea, anything of the sort?" he asked.

Connor shook his head. "Nope. Been alright, really."

"Sleeping alright? No more weird dreams?" He didn't like interrogating people like this because it made him feel like he was a doctor, but for now, it was neccessary.

"Nope, not anymore."

Matt was actually rather impressed. "Well, then, you're recovering faster than most. I imagine it's because you have both strains. It makes you heal faster, allows you to take more without being slowed down," he said, and an intrigued spark shone in the young man's eyes. Before Connor had the chance to ask, though, Matt went ahead and answered the questions he knew would be coming. "All Adonai have the ability to heal faster than humans. Our brains are wired differently, I suppose you could say, so that whilst we feel pain and acknowledge it, we have the ability to repress it, control it, and manage it so we aren't crippled by it. Our pain tolerance is far above any human's. Our bodies are made differently, too. We have immune systems that are nearly impregnable, white blood cell counts through the roof, and also more coagulants in our blood so if we're injured, we stop bleeding and start healing faster. Not to mention it takes three times the pressure force to break one of our bones than it does a human bone."

Connor was, mercifully, quiet for a moment as he absorbed that information, turning it over inside his mind. "So...if you were to, say...get hit by a lorry...?" he asked, letting the question trail off suggestively.

_Get hit by a lorry? Good Lord, boy,_ Matt thought. "We'd sustain far less injuries than a normal human would. If this hypothetical lorry was going slow enough, we could probably get back up and keep walking with only minor bruising," he answered.

The young man, surprisingly, didn't smile, and just for a moment, Matt saw a flicker of something dark pass through his eyes. He didn't know what it was, but he had a feeling that it couldn't be anything good, though. "Right," Connor said softly, then abruptly refocused on the Irishman. "So...what are we going to be doing today? Or am I going to Emily again?"

"No, you'll be staying with me. Now, it might take a little longer for you to get any results with Charbydion energy. Since it isn't physical, it's difficult to grasp and channel. I mean, it's easy to divert the flow of water with your hands, but it's a bit harder to catch smoke with them," he said by way of warning. It'd taken him several weeks before he could concentrate his own power to any real purpose when he was in training, and the frustration alone had nearly driven him up the wall.

But Connor only gave a nonchalant shrug. "Ah, I'm sure I'll be alright."

"I'm just warning you. It can be...quite vexing."

At this, the younger lad leant forward with a knowing smile on his face. "Matt, lemme tell you something. If I can work with Professor Cutter near every day for almost two years without needing a straightjacket, I am quite confident in my own capacity for patience. Because there is _nothing_, and I mean _nothing_, more vexing than Cutter when he's in a mood," he answered smoothly.

Alright, Matt would give him that one. A person would need the patience of a saint to be around an irritated Nick Cutter for any extended period of time, especially considering that Connor was the person most often vented upon. If the young man could bear the worst of the professor's volatile temper without going mad, then Charbydion training would probably seem a breeze. "Fair enough," he agreed with a rare smile. "Fair enough. Let's get started, shall we?"

* * *

Ethan sat in the darkness of the empty house, staring at his own reflection in the dirty, spotted mirror across the room. In one hand, he held his knife, slowly twirling it between his fingers, the blade reflecting the sparse light in small gleams of bright silver. The house hadn't been lived in for many years, simply abandoned and left to itself, now an empty shell of what it had once been. Junkies and dealers often used it as a crash house, sprawled out on dirty mattresses to be lost in the haze of opiates, but they'd been driven out easily enough. He might've bled one or two, but they were all too thin and sickly to be of any use, and the drugs left an unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth that lingered for hours.

His mind was running in circles, a single thought track caught on a loop, like a mouse on its wheel, running and running but never getting anywhere.

The aberration. The corruption. The freak. The _Scion._

His lip curled up into a sneer of disgust; in the mirror, his reflection showed its teeth as well. Temple wasn't _right._ He didn't understand how Anderson couldn't see it, even if he was thick as a brick. No-one was supposed to exist with both strains of the Adonai virus within them. It was wrong. A corruption of nature. A disgusting aberration that needed to be scoured out of existance as quickly and efficiently as possible. He felt an urge to find the little whelp and cut his throat as it was, but...no. That would't work. A hideous freak he might be, Temple wasn't helpless; the little monster had some juice in him, especially if the little stunt with the mirrors was anything to go by. Even without training, if he felt threatened enough, the freak would still be able to lash out with enough force to take Ethan apart.

No, if he wanted the Scion dead, he'd need assistance. _Now let's think..._. Anderson was out of the question, so was Merchant. Not only was the Irishman dumber than fucking stump, he was too enthralled by the Scion to turn away. Merchant was loyal to Anderson, and she might be a pretty little bit of trim, but she wouldn't turn on her precious _leader._ Parker wouldn't do, either. She had already struck up a ridiculous friendship with the freak, and even if she could be turned to Ethan's cause, he might end up killing her simply because she was so damned _annoying._ Sometimes he was proud of himself for having not murdered her yet. And Danny...his big brother was too narrow-minded, too loyal to the so-called 'greater good' to get his hands dirty. Nah, that wouldn't do. Ethan might just end up killing him himself. Hm. Most people might've baulked to think of killing anyone, much less their own siblings, but he didn't. Hell, he actually felt a little giddy thinking about it. It'd probably be fun.

So there was no help to be found on his own team, but that didn't mean he was out of options. There were others that he could call upon, others on other teams, and even a few others that lived far on the peripherals, castaways that could be brought over to his side. Once they learnt of this Scion, they would be more than willing to help him. But wait...

Ethan sat up a little straighter in his chair abruptly.

This was it. He had been trying for years, _years_ to find a way to change things. The Adonai Initiative was outdated. They were relics of an age past, and they refused to move beyond what they had been to what they could become, refused to acknowledge their full potential. Ethan had chafed beneath the yoke for years, longing to change things in the damned Initative, but he didn't have the force needed to instill a few well-needed changes. He had some followers, yes, but not enough. What they needed was something no-one else expected, something no-one else would have. They needed a Scion. Oh, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. The plan was already starting to unfold in his mind. Once Ethan got his hands on that little corruption, he could use Temple's power to get rid of Langley and the other handlers. And with the handlers gone, he and his people could finish off their bloody coup and take control of the Initative themselves. If Temple refused to cooperate, well, then Ethan would just have to threaten the little simpering blond the freak was so sweet on until he did cooperate.

And once it was over... Ethan couldn't help but let a little giggle escape him as he picked up his knife once more, admiring his own warped reflection in the gleaming blade, his giggles becoming full-blown laughter. The corruption of nature would be righted once it'd served its purpose. Once it was over, Ethan would carve Temple's heart out himself.


	16. Secrets

"Y'know, I'm really starting to see what you mean by needing patience to do this," Connor noted.

Matt couldn't help but smile as the young man frowned, looking irritated. "I warned you," he answered. They'd been working on his lessons for the past week now, and the lad had yet to get any real results with his Charbydion power. He'd been making marginal progress with Emily and the Elysian lessons, but he was beginning to falter there as well. Of course, Matt wasn't surprised. In fact, he was still impressed. Connor had a focus that could rival some of the others that Matt knew, and a sharp, keen mind to go with it. "I'm sure you'll get it soon," he added, which he meant. "How goes the lessons with Emily?"

Connor let out a heavy sigh as he sat back in his chair, running both hands back through his hair. "We've kinda hit a roadblock," he admitted. He could feel his Elysian magic within him, coiled below the surface, and with Emily's help, he could call it forward, but the moment he tried to grasp it for himself – poof, gone. He'd spent hours trying to call it forward on his own, as she told him he'd have to, but no matter how he tried to, it refused. "I think that I can't until I figure this out," he said, and Matt looked up at him with eyebrows lifted, a sign of intrigue. "I mean, both strains are in my blood, and that means they're bound together. I don't think I'll be able to make progress with one without using the other, too."

The Irishman was quiet a moment as he turned that over in his mind. It made sense, he supposed, and he could see how that would work. In Connor's case, the two strains were entwined together, knotted inexorably; he couldn't draw one forth without drawing the other along with it. "I can understand that," he agreed at last. "Well, then, we'd best try to get something to work lest Emily blame _me_ for stalling you."

"Yeah." Connor risked a brief, sideways glance at the other man, then decided to go ahead and chuck caution out the window. Well, not entirely out the window, because that'd probably get him beaten up a bit more. "Y'know, speaking of her... Matt, are you an' Emily...?" He let the question trail off, but it was obvious enough what he meant. These Hunters might have the ability to act like weird emotionless automatons, but the more time he spent with them, he more he came to realise that he _could_ pick up on their feelings by looking really close, looking for the little things that normal people wouldn't ever notice. And he'd seen the Irishman and the Huntress casting each other little _looks_ whenever they thought nobody else was looking, when the other's back was turned.

But Matt, however, seemed not to understand, frowning slightly in puzzlement. "Are Emily and I...what?" he asked, sounding too confused for it to be anything but geniune.

"Are you...? Well, y'know..." He gave Matt a pointed _look_, but the other man was still looking utterly lost. _My God, he's even thicker than I am._ "Are you an' Emily gettin' it on?" he asked at last, figuring that the only way he'd get the message across was to be quite blunt.

The look of surprise on Matt's face was priceless. "I – good Lord, of course not," he stammered out hastily – a bit _too_ hastily, Connor thought. He appeared quite flustered, a first for him, and unless Connor was very much mistaken, his ears might've been turning a bit pink. "Emily and I...uhm, our relationship is – it's quite strictly professional. We're teammates, no more than that."

Connor felt a grin begin pulling at the corner of his mouth. "See, now you're stammerin'. You don't stammer, Matt. _You_ have got a crush on Emily."

"I do not," he persisted stubbornly. It wasn't true. He might see Emily as a friend, one of the most loyal in the Initiative, but there was no more to it. Was there? And even _if_ he did have some sort of...'crush' as Connor said, nothing would ever come of it. Hunters were not permitted to strike up personal relationships with each other, especially not if they were on the same team. If Langley or any handler suspected that he and Emily were growing too close, then one or both of them would be reassigned and sent to the opposite ends of the earth, most likely to separate continents, or even separate eons. And were there no rules prohibiting such a thing...Emily was a lady, far too refined for the likes of him. "We are not encouraged to form...emotional attachments to fellow Hunters. It would interfere with our task," he told Connor, proud that his voice came out even and steady.

The younger man, however, was not willing to let the subject be dropped. He frowned slightly. "Seems to me like you're not '_encouraged to form emotional attachments'_ to anybody, mate," he answered, echoing Matt's own words with bitter resentment. "Look, you might not be a human being, but you're still human. You're gonna connect to people whether you're allowed to or not." He paused and raked his hand back through his hair, combing the overlong black strands back out of his face. "Y'know, you ought to tell Emily. I doubt it's good for either of you to keep it a secret."

"You mean, as you are entirely forthcoming with Abby Maitland?" Matt snapped back, then inwardly winced. Connor drew back as if the words had physically stung him, a muscle in his jaw ticking as he clenched his teeth. "I-I am sorry. I shouldn't have... That was..."

"Low," Connor finished for him, voice tight. _"That_ was low."

"Yes, it was," Matt agreed softly. He'd crossed a line there. He might not be as good as an Elysian in reading into people's emotions, but he knew enough to see that whatever relationship Connor and Abby had was complicated, perhaps as complicated as Matt's own relationship with Emily. He had no right to bring it up the way he had. "Should we...continue this tomorrow?" he asked.

"Good idea." Connor snatched his jacket off the back of a chair and strode out of the room, barely resisting the urge to slam the door behind him. _Stubborn, stupid Irish bastard._

* * *

Emily strode into Matt's borrowed office without bothering to knock or ask permission, and without any preamble, she strode forward, braced both hands on the desk, and leant forward over it to meet his eye directly. "You have not told him."

For a moment, the other Hunter stared at her in surprise, taken off-guard by her sudden entrance, but as her words sank in, the surprise became a cool, carefully blank face devoid of any real expression. She recognised that look – she had long ago perfected her own facade, able to hide everything she felt behind an unreadable mask, but something in her twisted to know that he felt he had to hide from her. "I know that I haven't," he replied.

"For the love of all that is holy, Matt, _why?"_ she implored. "I understand not wanting to overwhelm him, but he _has_ to know. He cannot last too long without – "

"I know that," he snapped, cutting her off abruptly.

"Then tell me why. Tell me the reason you're holding out on the boy," she demanded of him. Very few Hunters ever actively went against their leader's wishes, but she and Matt had been working together longer than most ever did. He might be their leader, and she would never think to try and take that position from him, but she had long ago earned the right to pull him up when he needed pulling or call him out when he was in the wrong. And from where she stood, he was very far into the wrong. Which meant she had to drag him back to sensibility.

He didn't answer her, just glared at her in stony silence. Emily let out a low hiss, lips drawing back from her teeth, though it was far from a smile. "This is Langley's doing, isn't it?" she ground out. "Is this what he wanted to talk to you about alone? To keep Connor in the dark? What else does he want you to do, Matt? Does he expect you to be the one to drag the boy back to the Compound? Just how much of his dirty work are you – ?"

_"Enough,"_ he snarled back, rising to his feet so quickly she barely saw him move. "That is _enough._ What Langley and I speak of is of no consequence to you, and you'd do very well to remember your place."

"My place?" she echoed. "My _place_ is to help you, Matt, and that is exactly what I'm trying to do. But I cannot help you if you do not tell me what is wrong in the first place."

"I'm afraid that is where you are wrong," he ground out. "Your place is to follow orders, not question them. Do you understand?"

"Matt – "

_"Do you understand?"_ he repeated.

Emily let out a little involuntary gasp as she felt cold tendrils of power snake across her skin. He wasn't actually trying to use his power against her, but she could still feel it. It made her jerk backwards as if physically pushed. He didn't flinch, just stared at her hard and cold. "I understand," she whispered, still clutching her arms close to her body, trying not to lash back at him. Still, her own power reacted to the chilled touch, trying to protect her; sparks snapped bright in the air like temporary stars where the Elysian met the Charbydion. "I understand," she repeated. _I understand that there's something very wrong here,_ her mind echoed.

Matt narrowed his eyes for a moment, then the cold power dissipated from the air as he brought it back under control once more. "Good. Now, you are not to say a word to Temple about this," he ordered. "And you aren't to mention it to Danny, Ethan, or Jess, either. You'll keep quiet, or I'll ask Langley to have you transferred elsewhere."

It wasn't an empty threat, and she blanched despite herself at the prospect. Transferred somewhere else? Whether he knew it or not, Matt had just struck the one nerve that would force her to comply. "Very well," she said, bowing her head in deference.

"Good, now get out."

Once she'd walked out, Matt let out a heavy groan and sank back down into his chair with a sigh. _Damn you to hell, Langley,_ he thought bitterly. Handler or not, he despised that man with a fervent passion at the moment. Langley _had_ given him the order not to tell Connor about the one true downside of being Adonai, but he'd also forbidden Matt to tell any of his team about it, either. It was a secret task given only to him, not to be disclosed to any others. And it'd probably just turned Emily against him. He knew that this wasn't right by any means, that the longer he left it, the worse it would turn out...but he had no choice. Langley didn't care about Connor past the advantage the boy could give him, and he wanted to see just how unusual this boy was.

Matt knew, as surely as the sun would rise in the morning, that this was not going to turn out in a way any of them would like. From where he stood now, it would go one of two ways. Either Connor wasn't affected, and then Langley would have him dragged in kicking and screaming, to take the boy apart and find out just what made him tick. Or Connor was affected, and all this time had just been allowing the sickness to set in and work its way deep into him, make him even more volatile and dangerous. No matter how it turned out, though, it was going to be very, very bad.

Staring off into empty air, he didn't even notice that his plants had wilted and blackened, mirroring Emily's fear and hurt. _Secrets,_ he thought bitterly. _Connor was right. Secrets are toxic, and we are all feeling its effects._ He just wished he knew how to get draw the poison out.


	17. Teeth

**A/N: it took me awhile to get this chapter up, but I think the muse decided to go into seclusion after spoiling you lot last week. :) Also, just to say a few things...**

**Rubytronix: thanks so much for reviewing even once during the story, love the support.**

**Sandylee: things will be sorted out soon. Becker, Jenny, Cutter, and Stephen are minor characters at the moment, but their parts become bigger once things start getting rough. Thanks for reviewing, too!**

* * *

When Abby walked out of her bedroom, she saw Connor standing by her array of reptile tanks with Fred, her lizard, perched on his shoulder and Petunia, her shoelace-thin milk snake, wound around his wrist so he could take out the old food and water and put in fresh, humming idly. She bit her lips together on a smile; it was always so sweet when he took care of her reptiles for her, without being asked. He knew how much they meant to her, so he was always careful in handling them. She had a hard time reconciling the scarred young man she'd taken care of last week with the kindhearted nerd tending to her pets right in front of her. A giggle escaped her anyways when Rex swooped down to land on Connor's head, grasping at his messy black hair with small claws to keep balance.

Connor glanced up in surprise at her laugh. "Oh, hey, Abs. Hope you don't mind," he said, putting Fred back into his tank and then carefully prising Petunia off his wrist. He glanced upwards at Rex, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "What, d'you think that if you decide to be my new hat that I'm gonna forgive you for throwin' up in my best fedora?" he asked the Coelurosauravus, and Rex chirped in reply, grasping the young man's black hair a little more firmly. "Suck-up."

"How are your, erm...magic lessons going?" she asked, smiling as she came to sit on the edge of the table beside the other reptile tanks, reaching in to lightly stroke the lizard's spiny back with one fingertip.

"Mm...a little rough, actually. Emily an' Matt seem a bit miffed with each other, and..." He paused slightly, reaching up to rub the back of his neck in chagrin. "Think it might be me fault, actually."

Abby blinked in surprise. "How is it your fault if they're having a row?" she asked, puzzled.

He coloured a little, a sure sign that he was embarrassed. One thing she always found adorable about him was that he had no guile, at least not around her. When he tried to lie, he'd stutter and get figety; when he was embarrassed, his ears would turn red. It was like his body always betrayed him. "I thought that Matt an' Emily sorta had _a...thing_ for each other, y'know? But when I tried askin' him about it, it really pissed him off. I didn't mean to, honest, but he got mad anyways. And then because he was mad at me, I think he got mad at Emily, and now they're _both_ ticked," he said all in a rush, the words nearly tripping over each other in their haste to escape his lips.

She was quiet for a moment as she processed that information, trying to sort through his high-speed ramble. Sometimes he talked so fast it was like another language altogether. "Well, what in the hell did you say to him?" she asked at last.

"I just asked him if he an' Emily were together," he insisted. "He said they weren't, but he got real testy about it, so I think he's lying."

Abby had a feeling that he wasn't giving her the entire story, but she was too interested in potential gossip to care. Another of her favourite things about Connor was that his ear was fine-tuned for gossip in the ARC. "You really think they like each other?"

He gave a little laugh. "I _know_ they like each other," he corrected confidently. "Matt got all stuttery about it. Matt doesn't stutter. Ergo, he's lying." Connor paused for a moment with a small grin on his lips. "I like that word, 'ergo.' Y'know if you spell the word 'ergo' backwards, it spells 'ogre' instead."

They glanced at each other, maintaining a straight expression for only a moment before bursting out in laughter. Abby's mobile started ringing; she picked up the mobile, trying to smother her giggles as she gestured for Connor to be quiet. When he didn't stop laughing, she put one hand over his mouth before answering. "Yeah, Cutter, what is it?" she asked, reining in her snickers.

_"There's been another anomaly. It's at Hensfield and Perk, you know where that is?"_ the professor asked, not bothering with niceties, as she knew he didn't when there was an alert.

"Yeah, I do. I'll meet you there," she replied, and he hung up without so much as a goodbye. "Got an anomaly," she told Connor, putting the mobile back in her pocket.

"Can I come with?" he asked, surprising her. Her shock must've shown, because he gave an awkward little shuffle, looking for a minute like a nervous schoolboy, all elbows and knees. "I mean, since Emily an' Matt ain't talking to each other...me schedule's got a few blank spaces in it. Well...a lot of blank spaces."

Abby barely resisted the urge to hug him. "'Course you can come with. Let's go. Cutter and Stephen will be glad to see you're still alive. I think Jenny's about forgot what you look like," she teased, and he rolled his eyes.

"Sure she has. Let's go." He shook his head, making Rex chirp indignantly and flutter away. With a practiced twist of the wrist, he flipped his fedora onto his head, grabbed his jacket with the other hand, and they hastened out of the flat towards the car park.

* * *

"My God, you're alive," Becker remarked, showing some of his rare humour as Connor and Abby got out of the Mini. The soldier hadn't been on the team as long as the others, but he would admit that the techno-geek was perhaps one of the more amusing scientists on the crack team. Temple's humour might've been a little...peculiar, but it was amusing nonetheless.

"As if you could get rid of me," Connor replied with a cheeky grin, tipping his silly-yet-ubiquitous fedora back on his hair. "Where's the anomaly?"

Becker pointed towards a dilapidated, half-destroyed building that looked ready to collapse if the wind blew on it too hard. "It's set for demolition next week. It's mostly been a flophouse for junkies and homeless people, but lately there's been reports of missing persons, people that go in and don't come back out," he answered as they walked into the shadow of the building. The inside was just as bad if not worse than the outside, with walls half torn-down, piping exposed in the ceiling, holes in the floor, with nameless piles of rubbish scattered all over the place. Everything creaked and smelt faintly of the damp. "Cutter thinks the anomaly's recurring. Showed up before we had the ADD, and some creature's been shacking up ever since."

"Makes sense," Abby agreed. "I mean, its isolated, sheltered, a good den site, and if there were people that came in here, they'd be easy prey."

Connor, however, made a face. "It must not have a sense of _smell,_ then," he said.

They ducked into a large empty room – if it could be called a room, considering it lacked most of its walls – where the anomaly glittered serenely from the dim gloom, casting broken, prismatic light across the grimy floors and ceiling. Two more black-clad soldiers were standing there, and also standing there was Jenny Lewis. She wasn't wearing her usual silk blouse, skirt, and heels, but rather a more sensible ensemble of jeans, trainers, and a blue top. It wasn't designer, yet she still managed to look elegant. Connor always wondered how in the hell she managed to do that. Maybe she had some sort of magic on her own. As they walked over to her, she was just ending a phone call, snapping her mobile closed. "Alright, we've got the site secured. Threw the demo company some paperwork about cutting corners and – " She turned to look at them and smiled. "Connor, there you are. We've missed you. Cutter and Stephen are through there. Apparently the Mighty Hunter has found some sort of invisible animal trail," she directed, pointing further into the building.

Becker felt his lips twitch at her use of Stephen's unwanted moniker. It seemed Connor named everybody on the team at some point or another. Stephen was the Mighty Hunter, and he would love to take the mickey, but Becker had yet to shake Temple's given nickname of "Action Man" either.

They made their way further into the building, but all at once the smell hit them as if they'd just walked into an invisible wall. Abby put a hand over her mouth, Connor went green around the gills, and even Becker recoiled slightly. It was a thick, heavy smell that permeated the air, almost tangible, the kind of gagging scent that one could almost taste. It reeked of something raw and coppery; all three of them recognised it – it was blood.

As they came forward, Cutter stepped out to meet them, looking pale. "Glad you're here," he said, glancing over at Abby and Becker, then managed a weak smile at Connor. "Look at that. You've managed to escape the batcave. Do you even remember what the sun looks like?"

"Very funny, Prof. I was just popping out for a bit to refresh me memory. What's dead?" Connor asked. "Was it a creature?"

"We're...not sure. C'mere," he said. They stepped out onto the narrow alley behind the building, towards a small enclave where the two brick walls didn't quite meet. At first glance, they couldn't hardly tell whether the body was male or female, it'd been so viciously mangled. The face hadn't really been harmed, but it was so smeared with blood and twisted in an expression of terror and agony that there was little they could make out except for the fact that it was a young person, and Caucasian. Abby thought she might've seen some brown hair, but she couldn't tell if that was a natural colour or dried blood. Below the face, though...

"Eviscerated," said Stephen's voice, making them all startle and turn around. The tracker stood a few feet away, leaning back against the brick wall, looking sheet-pale. "Torn all to hell. It wasn't any sort of blade, and there's definite bite marks."

"So, a creature, then?" Abby asked, trying not to pass out or throw up, stepping away from the corpse. Cutter had said they weren't sure if it was a creature or not, but it definitely sounded like a creature attack.

Stephen frowned. "We don't know. I mean, just going on the fact that there's bites and eaten flesh, I'd say yes, but..." He paused, looking reluctant to continue. "The bite marks don't match the jaw structure of any creature I have ever seen. That and the blood."

"What about the blood?" Becker asked; the captain himself looked faintly green. He'd seen death before, but there were things you didn't ever get used to. And he firmly believed that if someone was unaffected by murder, then there was definitely something wrong.

"There's not enough of it. I mean, the adult human body has at least ten litres, maybe less if the person's small, but that...there's a huge amount of blood volume that's not there, but the person was killed here, so...where's the rest of it?" Stephen wondered. "And whatever it is, it's a picky eater, too. It ate the heart and the liver. They're both gone. Entirely gone."

Out the corner of her eye, she noticed that Connor was slowly edging back towards the corpse, squinting as though trying to see something but not wanting to get anywhere close. She understood the feeling. "What is it, Conn?" she called. _It's his first time out in weeks, and we get the vicious murderous creature. Why couldn't we have something small and cuddly for once?_ she thought to herself.

"You can see a partial pattern of the teeth on the bruising around the bites," Connor muttered, more to himself than to her. "It doesn't look reptilian at all. The spacing's all wrong. And they form a – a continuous...arch..." All at once he went ghostly white and staggered backwards. He bolted a few feet away and was sick into a trash bin.

"What is it? Connor, what's wrong?" Cutter asked, noticing the student's abrupt horror.

"The teeth form a continuous arch," the young man groaned, sinking down to sit on the dirty ground.

Abby, Becker, and Stephen all stepped closer to him, confused and worried, but only Abby came around to his side, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "Talk to us, Conn. What sort of creature has teeth with a continuous arch?" she asked. She didn't have the foggiest idea what it meant, but it had to be important to make him so upset.

He closed his eyes, tipping his head back against the wall, and she felt him shudder. "Only one animal does," he said hoarsely.

The words rang some distant mental bell, and Cutter was beginning to have a rather sickly feeling in his gut. "Which one?" he asked.

Connor looked up at him with dark eyes haunted. "Humans."


End file.
